Birdsville hotel up for sale

One of Australia’s most iconic hotels has been put on the market.

It’s attracting buyers and one of them is entrepreneur Dick Smith who is considering an offer.

The Birdsville Hotel needs no introduction to most Australians. Built in 1884 on the edge of the Simpson Desert, the pub is in the outback 1600 kilometres from Brisbane.

It is renowned as a symbol of Australia’s outback.

And of course, it is famous for Australia’s most celebrated race meets every year, the Birdsville Races.

Mr Smith raves about the hotel.

“I love the pub, even though I don’t drink, but it’s a wonderful place and I love Birdsville,” Mr Smith told commercialrealestate.com.au

“I don’t know much about pubs, but I’ll be talking to my friend Singo [businessman John Singleton] who does and, although it’ll depend on the price, I’d love us to buy it.

“It would be such a disappointment if it didn’t sell to an Australian. It doesn’t bear thinking about if it was bought from China.”

Mr Smith and the Birdsville Hotel go back a long way.

He famously owned the hotel for one day in 1979 when his offer to buy it was accepted. And then, the building burned down the next day so he rescinded the contract.

At the time, he paid $62,000 for the hotel.

Today’s agents, Darren Steele, director of Steele & Associates Hotel Brokers, and Guy Bennett from Knight Frank, however, indicate it could be worth a lot more but refuse to disclose the price.

“It is such an iconic brand, and such a unique offering, it has value over and above any typical hotel offering,” Mr Steele told commercialrealestate.com.au “We don’t want to set a price this early on, but closer to the end of the campaign, when we’ve heard from the market, we’ll expect to know more.

“We expect to be overrun with interest from owner-operators, tourism operators, overseas buyers and even some multinationals who might see the brand align with their own core businesses.”

Leon Gettler - 20th August 2018