Big change coming to Sydney pubs amid hotel selling spree
The Agincourt Hotel in Haymarket is up for sale.
Pub owners across Sydney and NSW are jostling to sell off their assets to cashed up hotel barons, who have been snapping up bars faster than a schooner on State of Origin night.
Experts revealed multiple establishments are now up for sale, especially within inner city areas, because of strong buying from the city’s heavyweight hotel families trying to bulk up their pub empires.
These deep pocketed dynasties have in-turn been encouraged by interest rate cuts and still healthy revenues from poker machines.
Among the latest prominent pub listings is for the multistorey Agincourt Hotel in Sydney’s southern CBD, which currently generates about $5.2 million a year in bar, food and gaming revenue.
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An Agincourt staff member takes orders back in 2004: the hotel has been operating for decades. Picture: Sarah Rhodes
The Agincourt has hosted numerous big events over the years. Here revellers celebrate a 2006 FIFA World Cup game between Australia and Japan.
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The hotel was listed for sale late last week and is predominantly positioned as a late-night entertainment venue with nightclub ‘Club 871’ operating on the first floor, and live entertainment space ‘The Alley’ operating out of the basement level.
The nearby Rose Hotel in Chippendale is up for sale after hitting the market in early May, along with the Kurrajong Hotel in Erskineville.
Other recently listed pubs are The Hampton in Potts Point, Bills Barry’s Hotel in North Sydney, The Harold in Forest Lodge, Blues Point Hotel in McMahons Point and many others.
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The Kurrajong Hotel in Erskineville is also up for sale.
The Union Hotel in North Sydney recently sold.
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These listings are hot on the heels of the $22 million sale of The Union Hotel in North Sydney, which was snapped up by Ashton Waugh’s Watering Hole Hotels business. The purchase took Watering Hole to 15 venues across NSW.
The Feros family’s JDA Hotels also recently snapped up Sydney’s landmark Crystal Palace Hotel in Haymarket – taking its pub portfolio to 14 venues.
Many of these sales, including the listing of the Agincourt Hotel, have been spearheaded by national brokerage agency HTL Property.
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JDA Hotels bought the Crystal Palace Hotel in Haymarket.
HTL Property national director Dan Dragicevich said rate cuts have been a factor in the recent uplift of sales.
“There has been a noticeable surge in buyer inquiry in the last six months, spurred on by now consecutive and further forecasted interest rate cuts,” Mr Dragicevich said.
HTL managing director Andrew Joliffe added that improved credit costs were making profitable pubs more attractive.
“The Agincourt, like the Crystal Palace sale last week, is one such example and further validation of our view that investors will continue to front run the improved aesthetic and availability of credit to take positions in hard yielding property assets,” Mr Joliffe said.
Staff and patrons at the Agincourt back in 2008: the pub has been operated by the same partnership for 25 years.
The Agincourt Hotel has been operated by the same partnership for the past 25 years.
The George St venue is across the road from the $3 billion Tech Central and Central Place precincts – forecast to provide 268,000 sqm of commercial space and house an additional 16,000 commercial employees.
It’s also near the Central Park mixed-use development, the University of Technology campus, Broadway Shopping Centre, Paddy’s Markets and the Darling Square precinct.
