The intrepid Tilley & Wills have listed their Richmond Inn Hotel in Sydney’s north-west, as the NSW pub market picks up momentum heading into the last quarter of 2023.
Built 1864, the Inn occupies a 2,996sqm corner opposite the train station, in Richmond’s main commercial and retail precinct, beside the Marketplace shopping centre.
Simon Tilley and Nick Wills’ group bought the big hotel mid-2021 from a private partnership of long-term owners.
They have undertaken an extensive $2 million renovation and refurbishment, aiming to reposition the business into a more family-friendly offering.
It provides public bar and wagering, commercial kitchen and bistro, gaming room with 17 machines, accommodation, and a recently developed extensive beer garden. It holds a 3am liquor licence and reports a total of around $6.3 million in annual revenues.
One aspect of the operation they have not renovated is the gaming room, although plans have been drawn to move the room to a better location within the hotel, adjacent to the car park. This leaves opportunity for an incoming operator to increase the room’s prominence in the precinct.
Richmond’s Inn features both the largest trading footprint and latest liquor licence in a region experiencing ongoing population growth, driven by the 180-ha $1.8 billion Redbank North Richmond master planned community, bringing an estimated 1,500 new residential dwellings and nearly doubling the existing population, to around 9k residents.
Tilley & Wills already hold the Prince Consort in Fortitude Valley, and recently announced the purchase of the nearby Shafston Hotel from Redcape.
Having acquired Richmond in the height of the pandemic, with the state largely under lockdown, they now cite “portfolio hygiene” as reason behind the sale.
“We see indubitable latitude in our south-east Queensland prospects, but feel it’s prudent to first liberate some equity by relinquishing Richmond,” poses Tilley.
The Inn is likely to fetch circa $18 million, as agents report a recent uptick in investor appetite and activity, as interest rate uncertainty wanes. The sector has fared well, emerging from what was thought could be a significant downturn in discretionary spending.
A sale campaign is being managed by HTL Property’s Dan Dragicevich, Andrew Jolliffe and Sam Handy, noting the opportunity left by a group led by its f&b.
“There clearly exists further potential in gaming performance at the venue, being the one part of the Hotel that hasn’t had the benefit of capex,” suggests Handy.
The freehold going concern of the Richmond Inn Hotel is being sold via Expressions of Interest, closing Wednesday, 18 October.
