Redcape Hotel Group has tightened its portfolio a bit more ahead of the much-rumoured public float, divesting three pubs at once to a burgeoning local operator.
The three pubs are located in Port Macquarie, and their sale follows the Group’s previous sales of the Plantation Hotel and Moonee Beach Tavern to represent a strategic exit from the area.
The Port Macquarie Hotel, Town Green Inn and Tacking Point Tavern are conversely in the heart of the operations for the privately-owned Matsal Group (Taphouse Hotel Group), which also operates the Chinderah Tavern, Kingscliff Beach Hotel, Coolangatta Sands Hotel, and Rydges Hotel at Port Macquarie.
Redcape is owned by US hedge funds Värde Partners and York Capital, and has been strategically fine-tuning its portfolio for some time. Other US finance entities have been engaged to manage a much-mooted IPO for some or all of Redcape later this year, but as yet the hotel operator has remained very guarded about exact plans.
The latest assets were offered off-market through Ray White Hotels to what was likely a small, targeted list of prospects. Ray White’s Joel Fisher and Andrew Jolliffe were unable to comment.
Far from selling-down, late last year the Group made significant purchases of the Landmark Hotel for around $25 million, and Eastern Creek Hotel for around $10 million, both in western Sydney and prime gaming territory.
The Matsal Group, owned by entrepreneurs Peter Mattick and Philip Salter, has been amassing a portfolio in the northern NSW, south-east Queensland area for nearly a decade.
This package deal was reported in the Australian Financial Review as changing hands for around $12 million, and the mix of opportunities across the three pubs brings a strong, strategic bolster to Matsal’s operations.