Just weeks after expanding west into Eastwood, the family-owned Universal Hotels has picked up thriving inner west pub the Enfield Hotel from the De Angelis family.
Gallagher Hotel Management (GHM) relaunched the hotel as the Irish-themed PJ’s Enfield in 2013.
GHM has long employed a portfolio approach that looks to a mix of returns through leases and freeholds and in 2019 the group listed the leasehold operation.
Located on busy Liverpool Road, around 14 kilometres west of the CBD, the Enfield Hotel offered public bar with single service point, gaming, and a large rear carpark, under a late-trading 3am licence.
The De Angelis family’s De Angelis Hotels & Investments (DHI) recently divested the high-profile Bath Arms at Burwood and has now passed the Enfield business interest to yet another family operation, the Kospetas’ Universal Hotels.
It continues the group’s current growth plans, coming shortly after its debut into the greater west earlier this month, when it acquired the high-performing Moko, in Eastwood.
“The Enfield Hotel presented an opportunity for Universal Hotels to further expand our footprint into the western suburbs of Sydney. We would like to thank DHI Hotels for the smooth transition and handover,” Universal CEO Harris Kospetas told PubTIC.
“We have a really exciting food concept that we believe is lacking in the area and will be looking to launch before the end of the year.”
The Enfield lease bolsters the group’s collection of city and suburban venues, predominantly in the Sydney CBD and eastern suburbs, which are a mix of brick and mortar and tenancies
“Over the recent years we have been focused on acquiring community inspired freeholds with a diverse revenue mix, including accommodation, bottleshop and live entertainment, but we are also attracted to the operational efficiencies of ground floor style sports bars with food and beverage potential,” explains Kospetas.
Bookending a subdued first half of the year, 2025 has rebounded in FY26 with a slew of big-ticket licensed venue sales that bring the total for the year to around $1.7 billion, across 95 transactions to September (M3 Property data).
By comparison, the 10-year average is circa $1.5 billion over 160 transactions, and 2024, stymied under the weight of high interest rates, saw only 98 transactions, worth a total of around $920 million.
Investing in leaseholds has been the foundational strategy of AVC and an option increasingly adopted by major players such as Redcape and Endeavour, but balancing the asset type is also becoming a more regular practise in some private family groups as they seek higher returns and lower price points.
“The commonality of leading hotel groups targeting leasehold interests in order to complement existing freehold assets within respective portfolios is materially increasing,” suggests HTL Property national director Dan Dragicevich, who marketed the Enfield Hotel with colleague Sam Handy.
