John Azar’s Good Beer Co continues the portfolio shake-up, listing both the Union Hotel in North Sydney and The Harold of Forest Lodge.
The Union is a classic Art-Deco pub on the Pacific Highway equipped with three bars, a restaurant, gaming room with 21 EGMs, a function space and offices, set over two storeys on a 784sqm lot.
GBC bought it early 2021 from Patrick Gallagher, who had held it for around two decades.
Previously known as the Harold Park Hotel, the original three-storey pub was destroyed by a fire in 1959. The current building opened in 2007. It has traded a few times since, most recently sold by the Gravanis brothers’ Oscars group to GBC in 2022 for around $9 million.
Located opposite Mirvac’s residential complex at the former Harold Park raceway, The Harold has more than 900sqm of trading space over two levels, a gaming operation with 13 entitlements, and facilities below street level.
Both assets have reportedly undergone significant recent refurbishment, and cite combined weekly revenue north of $142k.
Good Beer Co is said to be “reweighting” the portfolio in accordance with its operating strategy. Earlier this year the group divested the nearby Commodore Hotel, in McMahons Point. Purchased in 2019 from Graham Campion for about $18.5 million, it was sold to the acquisitive Glenn Piper.
The Australian pub sector continues its assessment as one of the most resilient operating real estate asset classes in the country, sustaining strong underlying cashflows and trading fundamentals and continuing to be attractive to unsatisfied capital seeking opportunities.
A sale campaign on the Union and Harold is being conducted by JLL Hotels’ Ben McDonald and Kate MacDonald, who note their “plug-and-play” opportunity for both hoteliers and investors, in thriving precincts.
“We fully expect our business case for profit enhancement to play out in the short-term as local infrastructure and the neighbouring development pipeline of projects are realised,” says MacDonald.
The freehold going concerns of the pubs are being offered individually or in one line through an Expressions of Interest campaign closing Thursday, 14 September.
