Former Newport Arms Owners Appoint HTL Property to Sell Landmark Eastern Suburbs Hotel

Like a sentinel sitting atop the highest point in Paddington, the stately Light Brigade Hotel is synonymous with Eastern Suburbs pub culture; and being the watering hole of choice for locals, shoppers and visitors to the nearby sporting and large format concert precinct in Moore Park.

Owned by the highly regarded Bayfield family of Northern Beaches pub royalty, the Light Brigade Hotel has been listed for sale with leading HTL Property agents Andrew Jolliffe, Dan Dragicevich and Sam Handy.

A famous Sydney watering hole since the 1880’s, the multi-storey Light Brigade Hotel occupies a highly prominent position with two street frontages on the Cnr of Oxford St and Jersey Rd. The proximity to the patently thriving Oxford St retail precinct, Centennial Park and sports and concert goers attending the SCG or brand new $830m Allianz Stadium; lends the property most favourably to very regular external patron attraction levers.

Combined with the increased patronage at the new facility the State Government recently announced via a lifting of the annual cap from four live concerts to twenty live concert events; which is expected to inject $180m into the state and local economy, with the Paddington precinct the direct beneficiaries.

Having purchased the three-level hospitality venue in 2015 the Bayfield family, who continue to own and operate hotels at both Dee Why and Belrose, undertook a $5m staged capex program; and in doing so, most notably, constructed the hugely popular Light Brigade Rooftop which enjoys uninterrupted views over Sydney Harbour and has recently been granted midnight trading privileges.

“The Bayfields have undoubtedly done a fantastic job developing out and repositioning the Light Brigade Hotel during their decade long tenure” advised HTL Property National Director, Dan Dragicevich.

As such, an incoming operator will take great benefit from the considerable behind the scenes investment made, in addition to enjoying increased patronage as a direct result of the activity cap increase for annual major concerts and events at the state of the art Allianz Stadium and Sydney Cricket Ground precinct” added Dragicevich.

“Our clients have owned the hotel for the best part of 10 years, and have recently been approached by numerous parties on an unsolicited basis in order to buy the hotel” commented HTL Property Managing Director, Andrew Jolliffe.

“Oxford St is quite clearly trading exceptionally well, and hospitality assets with history, scale and key lever proximity are few and far between in this part of Sydney. Hence our firm expectation is that local, interstate and international buyers will actively pursue this opportunity” added Jolliffe.

The sale process for the Light Brigade Hotel comes at a time of materially increased transactional activity across Australia for the pub sector, including recent sales in Sydney’s CBD, in Sydney’s Western Suburbs and in Queanbeyan where HTL Property sold the sprawling Jerrabomberra Hotel to pub fund juggernaut Harvest Hotels.

“The swathes of validation capital, exceeding $1.2bn, and injected into the sector in the past few months by no less than Charter Hall, PAG and Harvest Hotels respectively, speaks very clearly to the continued and strengthening sophisticated investor confidence in the most resilient of commercial property asset classes” Jolliffe concluded.

The exceptional Light Brigade Hotel is being sold via an Expression of Interest Sale Campaign, managed exclusively by leading national brokerage agency HTL Property, and concluding 29 May, 2024.

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