Pendle Hill pub sells for the first time

The 7564 square metre site (outlined), opposite Pendle Hill station.

The Pendle Inn Hotel, in Sydney’s west, has changed hands for the first time since it was developed in the 1950s.

Opposite Pendle Hill station, the asset is trading for c$75 million to local publican Mark Duggan, who will retain it despite the 7564 square metre site’s town centre development upside.

The Pendle Inn includes indoor and outdoor drinking and dining areas and a drive through bottle shop.

At 223 Wentworth Avenue, but with two other street frontages, the property derives income from multiple sources including accommodation and a drive through bottle shop.

The modern pub contains a bistro, outdoor terraces and gaming room with TAB facilities and 30 electronic gambling machine entitlements.

Pendle Hill is about 30 kilometres from the CBD.

JLL’s Ben McDonald and John Musca brokered the off-market deal for family stakeholders and operators.

“It is particularly fulfilling when you can drive great results for respected and long-time industry stakeholders and in doing so, present such a wonderful opportunity for the incoming hotelier,” Mr McDonald said.

Mr Duggan also operates the Avondale Hotel at Burwood, 10km west of Sydney.

Billion dollar turnover

While investors flocked to land and industrial during the initial stages of the COVID pandemic, they swung to pubs last year – a trend which hasn’t abated, according to the JLL.

“We have seen over $1.3 billion of pub hotel transactions nationally over the past 12 months, with significant activity now emerging in the traditionally tighter-held markets for Melbourne and Adelaide, testament to the resurgent capital prioritisation of the sector,” Mr Musca said (story continues below).

“The Sydney hotel market continues to see record levels of capital flows into the sector with last week’s sale of the Earlwood Hotel for $45.2m adding to the long list of large…hotels to have changed hands this year,” he added.

“Numerous other hotels [are] mooted to currently be in final stages of changing hands,” according to the executive.

NSW leads cycle of broken records

The Pendle Inn deal comes three weeks since we reported former Sydney lord mayor Nelson Meers paid close to $160m – a national pub record price – for Casula’s Crossroads Hotel.

A watermark value for a country hotel was also set last month, when Harvest Hotels outlaid $29m for Wagga Wagga’s Victoria Hotel (smashing records established a month earlier with the sale of the Thomas Blamey Tavern, coincidentally also in Wagga Wagga – and six months ago, when an Orange hotel traded for c$24m).

Last year, the Stanford family sold two outer metropolitan Sydney assets of this type, on land-rich blocks – the Vineyard Hotel, for $70m to publican Andrew Lazarus, and the Carousel Inn, at Rooty Hill ($64m, to Solotel).

In another noteworthy sector transaction last year, Delvene Cornell and David Gyngell banked $68m from MA Hotel Management from the Brunswick Hotel, near Bryon Bay.

The two priciest Australian hotel deals in 2020 – each worth $45m – were again in Sydney and both to occupiers: Darlinghurst’s Kinselas, also picked up by MA HM, and the Narwee Hotel, acquired by Sam Arnaout’s Iris Capital.

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Marc Pallisco

A former property analyst and print journalist, Marc is the publisher of realestatesource.com.au.