South Africa's facilities giant Sasani Limited has announced that Sandra Gordon, who joined the group as chief executive officer three years ago, has not renewed her contract and will be leaving on 31 March 2002.

In an unrelated move, Ralf Degni is to replace Peter Slater, who resigned earlier this year, as financial director of the group and acting CEO in the interim.

Rummours about Gordon's departure have circulated for over a month with local business papers speculating that she and Sasani chairman Nic Frangos had fallen out about the company's future direction. Sasani's interim results showed a marginal improvement in revenue, though this has been offset by pressure on profitability. Sasani's are down 20% over the last year, but the past week has seen some recovery.

Geert Doyer of Coronation Capital, one of Sasani's major shareholders said, "We have briefed people to find a replacement for Sandra. We've identified the need to make content and to help fund content in order to feed the movie machine we have in Sasani."