Short family sells NSW beachfront hotel for $32m
Sydney’s Short family, renowned for their pub ownership, has sold the Seabreeze Beach Hotel at South West Rocks on the NSW’s Mid North Coast for about $32 million after more than two decades of ownership.
The multi-level venue overlooking Horseshoe Bay – about an hour’s drive north of Port Macquarie – was acquired by Hunter Hotel Group, a family business led by Paul Hunter that owns and operates nine hotels in and around the Newcastle and Central Coast region.
These include the Bateau Bay Hotel (purchased from the Laundy family for about $13 million in 2017) and Kincumber Hotel on the Central Coast, the Coach & Horses Hotel in Maitland and Finnegan’s Hotel in Newcastle.
The Short family – headed at the time by Sydney publican Warwick “Wog” Short – purchased the Seabreeze Beach Hotel freehold for $7.3 million in 2001. He died in 2004.
The hotel is one of nine venues operated under the umbrella of W Short Hospitality. The others in the portfolio include The Australian Heritage Hotel and the Glenmore Hotel in Sydney’s The Rocks, and the Royal Leichhardt in Sydney’s inner west.
The ownership of the Seabreeze Hotel was shared between Mr Short’s widow Ros and two of her children, the eldest son Martin and daughter Paris Ballantyne.
Their famous sibling, Fraser Short, quit the family business many years ago to establish The Sydney Collective, which until earlier this year operated several venues in partnership with the Laundy family and with other wealthy investors.
Commenting on the sale of the Seabreeze Beach Hotel, Ms Short said her family had enjoyed its period of stewardship immensely.
“We wish the new owner every success and look forward to seeing the hotel and the township prosper in the way both so richly deserve,” she said.
The Seabreeze Beach Hotel includes a bar, restaurant, drive-through bottle shop, gaming facilities, 29 accommodation rooms, three adjoining commercial properties and approval to further develop the 3816-square-metre land holding on which the asset sits.
Its sale to Hunter Hotels was handled by pub specialists Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich from HTL Property.
“Multi-generational hotel assets are uncontroversially precious items,” Mr Jolliffe said.
A major drawcard was the hotel’s beachfront location, which drew parallels with locations such as Bondi, Manly and Byron Bay.
“True beachfront hotels such as the Seabreeze are emblematic of Australian surf culture in its purest form, and are unsurprisingly very rarely offered and aggressively sought after,” Mr Dragicevich said.
The sale of the Seabreeze Beach Hotel follows struggling pub fund Redcape selling three venues for $85 million this week. These included the large-format Mount Annan Hotel in Sydney’s south-west, which was purchased by Nicole De Angelis-Hood, the niece of pub baron Arthur Laundy for more than $51 million in a deal brokered by HTL Property.
In another sale this month that highlighted the popularity of pubs on the NSW Mid North Coast, the Old Bar Tavern near Taree was purchased by regional pub baron and syndicator Nick Quinn alongside publican Jesse Overvliet.
The pub had been on the market for only five days, according to selling agents Kate MacDonald and Greg Jeloudev from JLL, who acted for the vendor, Kelly & Co Hotels, led by publican Rodney ‘Ned’ Kelly.
The Old Bar Tavern – or Tav Old Bar as it is also known – stands on a huge 5.74ha site at 13 Saltwater Road in Old Bar and includes 18 gaming machine entitlements, a drive-through bottle shop, bar and bistro. These facilities combined generate a total weekly revenue of more than $117,000.
The pricing was not disclosed. The tavern freehold last sold for $1.15 million in 2019.
Although he was nostalgic about the sale of a “terrific pub”, Mr Kelly said the divestment supported Kelly & Co’s consolidation strategy.
“The sale of Old Bar Tavern highlights the market’s resilience even after a further interest rate hike on Melbourne Cup Day,” Ms MacDonald said.
“Opportunities on large landholdings with a diversified mix of trade and genuine operational upside are still garnering interest from astute operators with long-term investment horizons.
