Chasing the news of two sales in the past fortnight, Redcape Hotel Group has announced the off-market sale of both the Shafston Hotel in Brisbane and the Central Hotel in Shellharbour.
The big, multi-level Shafston Hotel is in East Brisbane, close to the Brisbane River and Gabba Stadium. Redcape acquired it from the exiting Delaware North at the end of 2020.
It has now sold to Nick Wills and Simon Tilley’s award-winning Sydney-based group Tilley & Wills Hotels, for a price believed to be around $19 million. The group has a collection in Sydney and also the heritage-listed The Prince Consort, in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.
“We’re pumped to take our next step into Brisbane at the Shafston,” Tilley told PubTIC. “The juxtaposition of the two is congruous with our unfaltering augmentation. The Prince will indubitably cavort with his new cohort in the east.”
Separately, Redcape has divested its large-format Central Hotel, on the NSW south coast.
A former winner for Best Overall Hotel – Regional at the AHA NSW Awards for Excellence, agents report it attracted a “specific buyer pool of active clients” and sold to an unnamed local operator for circa $25 million.
Redcape is majority owned by ASX-listed MA Financial, and investor redemptions were frozen earlier this year as valuations struggled in the spotlight of anti-gaming media and public discourse. The position has prompted the formerly ASX-listed entity to trim the portfolio to bolster its cash reserves, beginning in August with listing of the Shamrock Hotel and The Grove, in Mackay.
Almost immediately news followed that the group’s Aspley Hotel in Brisbane sold to Star Hotels, along with a super swift transaction on The Grove.
“We are pleased with the progress we have made with asset sales,” says Redcape MD Chris Unger.
“In a short space of time, we have exchanged contracts on more than $70 million worth of venues, at or above book value.”
Redcape still holds a portfolio valued at more than $1.3 billion. In Queensland it still counts the Hermit Park Hotel, Rising Sun in Townsville, Wattle Hotel Coomera in Upper Coomera, and Eden Brewhouse in Redbank Plains.
Sale of the Shafston was brokered by HTL Property’s Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich, while the Central Hotel, which the group bought through HTL in 2018, was concluded by Sam Handy, with Andrew Jolliffe.
After a record year of more than $2 billion in pub sales in 2022, Queensland properties are similarly benefitting from investor interest in an asset class with a reputation for responding to changing market conditions and enjoying the benefit of high barriers to entry.
“We’ve been fortunate to sell four Queensland hotels recently, and the vast majority of sales have been made to interstate buyers, highlighting the magnetic investor interest the national buyer universe has for this state,” commented Jolliffe.
