Prior high-flyer Riversdale group has completed its exit from the pub game, selling its last asset, the Lambton Park Hotel in suburban Newcastle.
Australian Pub Fund, backed by business moguls John Singleton, Mark Carnegie and Geoff Dixon bought the LPH mid-2018 for around $6 million through its op-co Riversdale. The remaining entity, M.H Carnegie & Co, offered it through an on-market sale campaign at the end of 2022.
The pub was previously known as the Eli Chadwick Hotel, built 1881. Tooth & Co constructed the present two-storey brick structure in 1929.
Sold as a freehold going concern, providing bar and bistro, with footway seating, the hotel has reportedly pivoted successfully to a traditional food and beverage model, having divested its gaming entitlements prior to the sale.
It holds an approved DA for a new bar and function space on the first floor.
Lambton, part of wider Newcastle, has a local catchment of just over 5,000 residents. The unnamed buyer is thought to be a Sydney investor who already holds other pubs in Newcastle, and snared the LPH to bolster the portfolio for around $2.5 million.
Sale of the asset was managed by HTL Property’s Blake Edwards and Daniel Dragicevich, who report communicating with over 40 potential buyers and receiving multiple offers to purchase, resulting in a contract above expectations, within two weeks of the campaign’s conclusion.
“This transaction not only highlights the residual strength of the pub sector generally, but also that food and beverage assets, anchored by high value commercial real estate platforms, are still high demand assets,” notes Edwards.
HTL has orchestrated multiple Newcastle pub sales in the past year, including Andrew Lazarus selling the Beaches Hotel in Merewether to Glenn Piper and the Kearneys parting with the Beauford in Mayfield after 30 years, both in May, and the Northumberland, also in Lambton, in July. The LPH marks the agency’s second sale in the city for 2023.
