Riversdale’s Australian Pub Fund is cashing out
The Australian Pub Fund, backed by the business nous of business celebrity John Singleton, former Qantas boss Geoff Dixon and investment banker Mark Carnegie, is selling its pubs in a hot market.
It’s doing it through the Riversdale Group which is the operating arm of the company.
The APF knows it’s a business opportunity with the pubs it purchased valued significantly higher and performing much better than when they were purchased.
The first pubs on the market are The Marlborough Hotel in Newtown and Kinselas Hotel in Darlinghurst.
It’s chosen well: both are located just outside Sydney’s entertainment precincts and because of that, they are not subject to the lockout laws. More importantly, there’s been a significant increase in traffic there with patrons moving from the lockout zone to look for late night entertainment.
Of course, it’s all happening in a booming market.
Redcape has engaged Goldman Sachs to sell its portfolio and the Lantern Group is in the process of divesting its non-core hotels. At the same time, Keystone which was placed in receivership had the bulk of its portfolio sold to Dixon Hospitality. And Jamie’s franchise restaurants have been sold back to Jamie Oliver, and the remaining venues still on the market.
Andrew Jolliffe of Ray White Hotels, who is managing the sale of The Marlborough and Kinselas Hotels says it’s a hot market and Riversdale assets should attract some interest.
“Hotel portfolios are unmistakably scalable business models, for which many revered examples exist within the asset class." Jolliffe told The Shout.
"However equally, and whilst identifiably scalable, amalgamations of A grade hospitality assets such as those enjoyed by Riversdale are not arrived at easily, or cheaply; hence they deserve to enjoy a premium."
"Clearly these Riversdale sponsors have formed a view that the investment cycle for their capital deployed in this vehicle is maturing. Accordingly, and indexed directly to asset quality, we believe interest will be robust.”
by Leon Gettler, November 28th 2016
