Debt-laden Redcape sells $51m Sydney pub to Arthur Laundy’s niece

One remaining asset, The Shamrock Hotel in Mackay, remains on the market and could fetch more than $30 million nudging total sales close to $200 million.

The weight of higher borrowing costs is pressuring the company. An investor update published on Monday showed Redcape’s lenders required the fund to offload assets to refinance $250 million of debt scheduled to mature in September 2024.

“Recent variations to the terms of this facility require a partial reduction [of this debt] before the extension can proceed,” the update said.

“As a result of recent asset sales, the manager [MA Hotel Management] believes that the fund has ample liquidity to meet this requirement and finalise the extension of the 2024 debt maturity.”

Redcape managing director Chris Unger said the latest sales – all negotiated above their book value – were part of efforts to strengthen the group’s balance sheet and flagged the potential for further sales.

“As we have done in the past, we will consider divestment if required to meet our liquidity objectives or as a way to recycle capital into higher yielding opportunities,” Mr Unger told The Australian Financial Review.

The biggest of the three divestments – and one of the biggest pub sales so far this year – was the large-format Mount Annan Hotel near Campbelltown in south-west Sydney. Selling agency HTL Property said the undisclosed price surpassed the $51 million paid in February for the Robin Hood Hotel in Orange by syndicate of local operators and investors.

A title search shows a caveat was placed over the property by Mount Annan Land Holdings, a company directed by Ms De Angelis-Hood.

She is the eldest daughter of publicans Archie and Robyn De Angelis, and the niece of Rich List pub owner Mr Laundy, her maternal uncle.

While the De Angelis and Laundy families operate entirely separate businesses, Laundy Hotel Group CEO Stu Laundy congratulated his cousin on the acquisition of Mount Annan Hotel.

“I am very proud of her, she is an outstanding person,” Mr Laundy said.

Ms De Angelis-Hood’s husband, Brendan Hood, co-owns a number of large-format venues in Sydney’s south-west including The Lucky Australian Hotel in St Marys and Pub @ Rivo in Riverstone (both in partnership with PwC Australia legal partner Andrew Wheeler).

The De Angelis family through various businesses owns a swathe of outer suburban Sydney pubs including the Ingleburn Hotel (purchased for $29.25 million in 2019), the Raby Tavern and shopping centre, Uncle Bucks Hotel, the Moorebank Hotel, the Green Valley Hotel, the Picton Hotel and the Bath Arms Hotel.

Alongside the Mount Annan Hotel, Redcape also sold the Eastern Creek Tavern near Huntingwood in Western Sydney for more than $20 million to Tony Falcone, founder and director of family-run Falcone Hospitality, which owns and operates the Red Cow Hotel in Penrith, The Office Hotel in the Sydney CBD and The Haymarket Hotel on the doorstep of Chinatown.

Mr Falcone, an electrician and his butcher brother, Mario, owned and operated nightclubs in the 1980s, before moving into restaurants and then pubs in the early 2000s.

Tony Falcone is also the founder and managing director of FAL Construction that has completed large apartment projects, carparks and educational facilities.

Both the sale of the Mount Annan Hotel and the Eastern Creek Tavern were handled by Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich of HTL Property.

Mr Jolliffe said the rarity of large-format pubs coming to market and the multi-revenue streams they offered including food and beverage, retail liquor sales and gaming made them highly sought-after.

Redcape’s third divestment this month was the Unanderra Hotel in Wollongong, purchased by brothers Bill and Mario Gravanis’ Oscar Hotels for $14.5 million. JLL’s John Musca and Ben McDonald brokered the sale.

The hotel sold with 3am trading approval, 26 gaming machine entitlements and 14 accommodation rooms. It currently generates more than $130,000 per week in total revenue.

The four other hotels sold to date by Redcape are the Aspley Hotel in Brisbane, the Grove Hotel, in Mackay, the Shafston Hotel in East Brisbane and the Central Hotel in Shellharbour.