Harvest Hotels have taken another big regional pub in the Northside Hotel, Albury, from the famous footballing Burke family.
Patriarch Peter Burke and co. bought the Northside in 2005 and have operated it for the past 16 years. They also hold the keys at Goulburn’s Hibernian Hotel.
Beyond their connection to hotels, the family has a strong football history. Peter played first-grade for Manly, while his sons Matt and Brad played League for Manly and Rugby Union for Randwick and as Wallabies.
Residing on a generous 4,696sqm over three lots, the pub counts gaming with 24 EGMs, 3am liquor licence (Mon to Sat), 10 ensuited motel rooms and a detached car park, and a stand-alone bottleshop across the road with its own liquor licence.
Harvest have been tapping investors into the uber-hot put market. Its first fund raised around $58m, and paid 11 per cent in annualised distributions in FY21. A second raise, in September, garnered $48m to acquire four large pubs in regional NSW, forecasting a yield of nine per cent.
The freehold going concern of the Northside has now been purchased for $16.2 million, following an approach by Harvest.
It is the group’s sixth significant regional acquisition, complementing its growing portfolio and recent purchase of the Woy Woy Hotel on the NSW Central Coast for $32 million.
CEO Chris Cornforth says the group conferenced with HTL Property on its specific targets.
“The Northside Hotel marries well with our existing Albury asset in the form of Brady’s Railway Hotel,” he said.
“Scalable assets such as Northside align perfectly with our investment criteria, and we will continue to add quality large-format pubs in quality regional towns where we see opportunities for upside on a sustainable basis.”
The latest Albury sale also follows that of the Springdale Heights Tavern, bought by the Laundy-O’Hara partnership in July for $22 million.
“Material regional centre hotels like Northside are becoming rarer and rarer, and we are delighted to have delivered this outcome for both the Burke family and Chris Cornforth’s fast-growing Harvest vehicle,” offered Blake Edwards, who brokered the transaction.
