NSW pub sells for $47m as publicans pay up for coastal beers
Well-established hotelier family the Gallaghers and publican John Daly have sold the Terrigal Hotel on NSW’s central coast for $47 million to the expanding Hunter Hotel Group in an off-market sale – one of the largest deals this year.
It’s the tenth venue to be added to the growing pubs portfolio of Hunter Hotel Group, run by Bill Hunter and his son, Paul. They operate venues across the NSW central and mid-north coasts, such as Bateau Bay Hotel, which they purchased from the Laundy family, the Kincumber Hotel and Pippi’s at the Point.
“We look forward to building on [the Terrigal Hotel’s] strong reputation and continuing to deliver great hospitality for the local community and visitors alike,” said Paul Hunter, the Hunter Hotel Group’s managing director.
The group is in an expansion phase, buying the Seabreeze Beach Hotel at South West Rocks less than two years ago for about $32 million after it was owned for more than two decades by the Short family.
Their new hotel takes up around 4000 square metres of Terrigal’s beachfront precinct. With multiple levels, dining spaces, function areas and a gaming lounge, the venue generates average weekly revenues of more than $285,000.
For the Gallaghers, run by husband-and-wife team Patrick and Angela, the time was right to make an exit from the beachside pub.
The pair had purchased the pub because it was the only one in Terrigal, and it had established a strong following among the local crowd, Patrick Gallagher said.
“We were heavily involved with Terrigal Sharks [rugby team],” he told The Australian Financial Review. “It was just a really lovely pub, to be a part of real community pub.”
After buying the pub for about $28 million a decade ago, they were ready to take a little bit of cash through the sale, but Gallagher was sure they would “pop up somewhere” again.
“[We were] looking to bring our next step back closer to Sydney. It was just the drive was just getting a little tiresome,” he said.
The Gallaghers made headlines earlier this year when they snapped up one of Sydney’s best-known pubs, Jacksons on George, overlooking Circular Quay, for about $20 million. The family had taken on the leasehold in 2013 in a deal with developer Lendlease, which controlled the freehold. They left in 2018 as the site was redeveloped before buying back into it this year after the venue’s operators, DTL Entertainment, exited.
The Terrigal deal reduces the Gallagher Hotels portfolio to five pubs, including Hunters Hill Hotel – which is reopening this week after a $10 million renovation – the Longueville Hotel in Lane Cove, Jackson’s on George and the Railway Hotel in Fairfield, all in NSW.
Publican John Daly, the Gallaghers’ co-owner at Terrigal, is also involved in the Jackson’s on George and the Longueville Hotel in Sydney. His partnership with the Gallaghers began with the Leichhardt Hotel, which they sold for $14.5 million to hotelier Peter Walker in 2016.
JLL’s Ben McDonald, who brokered the Terrigal sale with colleague John Musca, said the transaction demonstrated just how much investment appetite there is for top coastal pubs.
“Terrigal Hotel’s scale, trading performance, and blue-chip location made it a highly attractive acquisition for experienced operators like the Hunter family,” McDonald said.
The Terrigal deal is the latest in a run of substantial hotel sales this year, with coastal pubs proving particularly popular. In two separate deals in May, Glenn Piper’s Epochal Hotels bought the Bermagui Beach Hotel in NSW’s South Coast for about $20 million and businessman Scott Didier acquired The Beach Hotel in Byron Bay for $140 million, the second-most expensive Aussie pub ever sold.
