HTL Secures Redcape Trifecta

Directors Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich of leading national brokerage agency, HTL Property, have today announced the successful sale of three Sydney freehold hotels to both a cross border new entrant to the Sydney hotel market; and separately, a newly formed local group respectively. All three sales announced by HTL Property are on behalf of valued client, Redcape Hotel Group.

The three hotels, Kings Head Tavern (Hurstville), Australian Brewery (Rouse Hill) and Eastwood Hotel (Eastwood), sold for in excess of $136m; making the divestment the largest transaction announced for the year across the national hotel landscape.

The three pub sale was coordinated by HTL on an off-market basis, with the successful buyers being the newly formed but very experienced Sonnel Hospitality (Australian Brewery and Eastwood), and the highly regarded Francis Venues (Kings Head Tavern) from Melbourne.

“This strategic move is part of Redcape’s active portfolio management strategy aimed at enhancing Fund earnings and returns for investors.  We will now look to redeploy this capital into new assets that enable us to continue to build on our strong returns track record.  We wish the purchasers well; they’ve picked up three great community pubs” commented Redcape Managing Director, Chris Unger.

“Collectively, these three hotels represent a diverse mix of business styles, from very large format suburban in the form of the simply huge Australian Brewery in Sydney’s burgeoning North West corridor, to high street mature suburb community focus points in the form of both the Kings Head and Eastwood hotels” advised HTL Property Director, Dan Dragicevich.

“However individually, all three accurately reflect the key fundamentals exhibited by AAA grade hospitality indexed commercial property holdings, and accordingly continue to be highly sought after investment vehicles” Dragicevich added.

The sale of the three hotels coincides with a strong close to the fourth quarter of the financial year for hotel sales, and which saw HTL Property enjoy an 88% market share of the $423m in NSW pub sales conducted during the 13 weeks to June 30, 2024.

“The material sale of the Redcape three unambiguously highlights the sharply improved market confidence throughout the constellation of pub sector investors nationally” commented HTL Property Managing Director, Andrew Jolliffe.

“In concert with other experienced investors and recent transactions involving groups such as PAG private equity and the Laundy family, the acquisition by both Sonnel Hospitality and the Francis family respectively, continues in our mind a theme of considered acquisition strategies being prosecuted by some of the brightest and best we have in the asset class nationally” Jolliffe concluded.

End.