Harvest Hospitality has completed an exit from Yass with the quick-turnaround sale of the historic Australian Hotel.
A pub opened on the site in 1863, named the Hibernian Hotel, owned and operated by former convict John Martin. It was renamed the Australian in 1881, experiencing ongoing structural revision and a major Art Deco facelift in the 1930s.
Harvest Hospitality is an entity fronted by Sydney-based Fraser Haughton and Chris Cornforth, with a scattering of NSW regional pubs.
The group bought the Australian in 2017 and executed a significant renovation, upgrading its public bar, gaming room, and accommodation, which counts 17 rooms upstairs and 17 motel-style suites behind the pub.
Since the works it has been operated under management, generating north of $30k average weekly revenue.
Harvest has been reshuffling the portfolio, selling its former Royal Hotel in Yass, rebranded as the Yass Hotel, in late 2019. More recently a property in Tamworth has gone under the hammer as the group overhauls its Court House Hotel in town.
Sale of the Australian marks a strategic exit from Yass, around 300 kilometres south-west of Sydney, as the group looks to other horizons. The Hotel is believed to have sold for slightly above the $3.5 million anticipated when it came to market just a week ago.
The undisclosed buyers are a private family who already own another regional hotel and recognised the opportunity for synergy. The Yass Valley population has grown over 23 per cent in the past decade to nearly 17,000, and this is slated to continue.
“We have been inundated with interest in regional hotels so far in 2020,” says CBRE’s Kate MacDonald, who marketed the pub with colleague Ben McDonald.
“These pubs are at the centre of their communities, and if managed properly, will yield strong returns for the operators.
“We believe the investment universe for this category and type of hotel will continue to expand in 2020.”
