The ‘Longy' sells for $50m in frothy pub market
The large-scale popular Longueville hotel in Sydney’s north has been snapped up by pub mogul Patrick Gallagher for around $50 million, reflecting the insatiable demand for high-quality watering holes.
Known as the “Longy”, it was sold by the Campion family, which through extended family members, has owned and operated the pub for nearly 100 years, taking over on opening in 1929.
Sitting on a gateway site at the entry to the revamped Lane Cove Village on Longueville Road, the hotel was originally a Tooth & Co-leased site and offers the usual array of bars, dining and gaming which generates about $160,000 in weekly revenue. There is approval for 15 accommodation rooms on the first floor.
Patrick and Angela Gallagher will add the pub to their stable of large-format, landmark community hotels including the Hunters Hill Hotel and Terrigal Hotel.
“We are delighted to now consider the ‘Longy’ as part of the Gallagher suite of quality family hotels and thank the Campion family for the opportunity to continue the hotel’s legacy in this wonderful, supportive community,” Gallagher said.
The sale is one of the latest in the sector where more than $2 billion properties changed hands in the year to June 30. Most recently deals have been dominated by family generational sales, which includes the Thomas family selling The Oaks pub in Neutral Bay, with a price tag of about $175 million, after five decades of ownership.
JLL managing director pubs John Musca and senior vice president, Ben McDonald, who sold the Longy, the Bar Broadway in Chippendale for $37 million, and are advising on the Oaks deal, said transaction activity in the asset class is at a “two-decade high nationally.”
“This is not surprising given the superior weighting attributed to hotel earnings and the very limited number of assets per capita that will ever be available to acquire – we are witnessing never-before-seen consolidation,” Musca said.
An Asian-based fund is another seller testing the market with its Republic Hotel on the corner of Bridge and Pitt Street in the city with price expectations of about $50 million.
The fund bought the four-storey hotel with the famed Republic Dining room and Taylor’s Rooftop Bar in 2017 for around $35 million, and has appointed JLL and Savills Hotel’s NSW state director Nick Lower to advise on the sale.
Lower said the Republic Hotel, which is currently leased to Fraser Short, is an “institution in the Sydney pub landscape”.
“Though it currently trades as a pub, we expect many buyers to look at The Republic through varied lenses, potentially as a mixed-use offering,” Lower said.
Further south in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, grand old dame the Como Hotel is also for sale by high-profile hotelier brothers Bill and Mario Gravanis of Oscars Hotels.
They bought the four-storey 3000 square metre site on Cremona Road, Como, overlooking the Georges River and recreational parks, in late 2016 for about $5.6 million from businessmen Geoff Dixon and John Singleton’s then Australian Pub Fund. However, it is expected the large-scale Como could fetch in the region of $20 million.
HTL Property’s Dan Dragicevich, Andrew Jolliffe and Sam Handy are advising on the sale and said the Como, Oatley and Oyster Bay areas are under-supplied with pubs compared to the rest of Sydney, and generally large-format venues are always strong traders, and in turn, tightly held markets.
“The national hotel market activity over the past four weeks has indicated a distinct allergy to some of the valuation headwinds associated with other asset classes, and our pipeline to year-end is commensurately strong,” Jolliffe said.
