Blue Mountains, Queanbeyan pubs trade
Sydney publicans Ray Reilly and Adrian Guest have snapped up the Art Deco New Ivanhoe Hotel, at Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains.
The freehold going concern for the 1930s venue is speculated to be trading for close to $6 million.
The vendor, Kerry Ray, has operated it since 1975 – for the first year as a leasehold.
She were represented by JLL’s Kate MacDonald and Knight Frank’s Mike Wheatley.
End of an era
On 1500 square metres, the Great Western Highway venue includes 14 guest suites and a bottle shop – one of two in a 10km radius.
There are also eight electronic gambling machines and a manager’s residence.
The venue is licensed until 3am.
“The highly competitive sale process demonstrates the continued investment desire for long-held family assets underpinned by strong trading fundamentals,” Ms MacDonald said.
“Kerrie and her family have been outstanding custodians and we are proud to have assisted in passing the baton to genuine publicans who will pay respect to the Ray family legacy,” Mr Wheatley added.
Tourist Hotel sells
Meanwhile in Queanbeyan, zoned New South Wales and about 15 kilometres east of Canberra, the Tourist Hotel (pictured, top) has sold for c$15m to a consortium speculated to include Arthur and Stu Laundy, Sean O’Hara, Nick Quinn, Lee Green and Sam Cruikshank.
It was the region’s first pub sale in a decade, according to HTL Property’s Blake Edwards and Dan Dragicevich, who represented the vendor, developer Steve Bartlett (story continues below).
The asset includes 18 guest suites, a bar, beer garden, bistro and gaming room with 16 electronic gambling machine entitlements.
It can serve liquor until 3am.
The block spreads 1928 sqm near a 200-bay council car park.
“Queanbeyan is a particularly desirable pub locality due to its large population and comparatively low number of pubs,” the agents said.
“[This is] a statistic particularly pronounced when including the population statistics for the nation’s capital city, Canberra, which is home to over 370,000 people and due to state legislation has no pubs operating with gaming machines,” they added.
“In addition to the favourable pubs per capita ratio, the Canberra-Queanbeyan statistics area has one of the highest incomes per capita in the country due to the large component of government sector employment,” according to the agents.
The purchasers also recently bought into the Manning River Hotel at Taree and Wagga Wagga’s Thomas Blamey Tavern.
“Queanbeyan is a patently high performing gaming area and the pubs are commensurately tightly held; hence we wholly expected a strong response,” Mr Edwards said.
“Buyer activity remains strong for premium assets,” according to the agent.
Mr Dragicevich added “buoyancy, positivity and very deliberate activity by industry paragons remains a strong feature of the national hotel market landscape”.
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