The government of the Bahamas has revealed that it is in negotiations to hopefully save the majority of jobs at the Treasure Bay Casino on Grand Bahama Island after the property’s new owner announced plans to re-brand the property.

According to a report from The Nassau Guardian newspaper, the Treasure Bay Casino, which is part of Freeport’s Grand Lucayan Resort complex, was once run by Isle Of Capri Casinos Incorporated until this operator pulled out in October of 2009. As part of its purchase at that time, the new owner made a commitment to continue employing existing staff but now wants to re-brand in order to improve services.

The asset was eventually acquired by Cheung Kong Property Holdings who placed the casino property for sale by auction in March of this year. HVS Capital Corp. handled the sales process and in July announced that they had a variety of bids they were ready to present to the Hong Kong company that is registered in the Cayman Islands. No further news of the sale has been made available in the public domain.

“We are trying to ensure that most of the employees would remain on with them,” Obie Wilchcombe, Tourism Minister for the Caribbean island nation, told the newspaper. “The employees might remain on with them but we have to work all the details out. You are ending employment with the former company and then you have negotiations with the company to keep the employees on.”

Treasure Bay Casino is located only 55 miles by sea from the coast of Florida and its over 20 million residents but the property was extensively damaged by last month’s Hurricane Matthew after the tropical cyclone swept directly across Grand Bahama Island to cause island-wide damages estimated at as high as $600 million.

“We wanted to get a more exciting casino,” Wilchcombe told The Nassau Guardian. “We wanted to get more shows in there. We wanted it to become more appealing in going after different markets.”