Hotel share offer will spread wealth

Durban - When developer Vivian Reddy was interviewed by a journalist at the launch of his luxury Oceans uMhlanga development earlier this year, he knew exactly what to say – but it worried him.He said the development, which will include a five-star hotel, would create 15 000 direct and indirect jobs, and permanent employment for 2 500 others.He had been asked what the landmark project – which had already won architectural property awards before construction began – what the development would mean for the “rank and file population”.“I knew my answer [about the employment figures] was not the perfect answer; it was a political answer,” he told another prestigious gathering in uMhlanga on Wednesday.

Worried that “my answer was not something I was absolutely satisfied with”, and determined to come up with a “real and meaningful” solution for the ordinary person, it ­“became a raging fire within me”, he told yesterday’s gathering at the Coastlands Hotel.Reddy and Rob Alexander, his partner in the massive, multi-billion-rand Oceans uMhlanga project, then “dug deep” and came up with an ingenious investment model to give people from all walks of life the chance of a stake in the five-star Radisson BLU-operated hotel that will go up in the Oceans development.Yesterday’s event was the official launch of the investment, and with shares going for R20 each, the minimum investment, made up of 50 shares, would be R1 000.Read also: