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Acquisitive pub baron Arthur Laundy has capped off a strong year, paying $35m for Sydney’s Bidwill Hotel in one of 2020’s larger deals.
The billionaire owner of Laundy Hotels, which controls more than 70 pubs and hotels in NSW and Queensland, said he bought the large hotel in the outer western Sydney suburb of Bidwill on Friday for cashflow purposes.
“I’ve also got a couple (of pubs) in the same area,” Mr Laundy told The Australian.
He said the Bidwill Hotel was well located, close to three new hotel construction projects he planned to kick off in the New Year.
The hotel deal includes VIP gaming rooms and a bottle shop and was negotiated off market by HTL Property directors Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich.
The vendor is also the hotel’s licensee, Martin Secheny, who purchased the hotel in 2005.
Mr Jolliffe is expecting more deals in the New Year, saying capital markets had awoken from their COVID-19-enforced lull.
‘‘Our look-forward deal flow in the hospitality asset class speaks to a more than motivated audience,’’ he said.
Low interest rates were also helping.
Mr Laundy is fresh from the success of developing the Marsden Brewhouse in western Sydney, and has just won council approval for a $35m redevelopment of the Log Cabin Hotel, a popular fixture of the Penrith community, with a couple of partners in tow.
The Log Cabin Hotel will be developed by a consortium including Laundy Hotels, the Cottle family and businessman Rob Wearn. They have worked together on other ventures.
The previous hotel on the site was destroyed by fire in 2012.
Mr Laundy also has plans before council to develop a hotel at Calderwood, a burgeoning suburb near his existing Albion Park Hotel, having purchased the site from Lendlease for around $4m. He proposes a purpose-built dining and entertainment venue and is hoping for construction to start early next year.
The pub veteran has a similar proposal for a tavern in the heart of Jordan Springs near Penrith, recently submitting an application for a $9m hotel on a 5026sq m site at Lakeside Parade.
In September, Mr Laundy and one of his business partners, Fraser Short, who together control Sydney’s popular The Watsons Bay Hotel, teamed up on another venture to acquire one of Australia’s most famous rural properties, The Farm at Byron Bay, a spectacular 54ha holding, paying $16m.
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