Singaporeans eye Olympic bounty in $34m Brisbane hotel deal

The group’s family office had a high conviction in the strong Brisbane hotel market, David Marriott, partner at High Street Holdings, said.

“Across Australia, [Brisbane] probably, for us, has the most potential for the next medium to long-term in terms of rate growth and occupancy growth,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“With all the activity that’s going to be happening around the Olympics and the build up to the Olympics, we really like that.”

The Jaleel family joins a run of property investors, both major commercial players and private investors in housing, with an eye to a real estate dividend flowing from the Games.

Queensland-based developer and contractor BMD, owned by the Rich List Power family, last week said it hoped to double its revenue to $4 billion over the next seven years as residential and infrastructure projects pick up in its home market.

Commercial syndicators such as Quintessential have been buying office buildings in the Brisbane CBD, while investors, including from interstate, are buying into Brisbane’s house price growth and rental growth. Investment property purchases in the Sunshine State grew 47 per cent between 2021 – when it was announced Brisbane was hosting the Games – to 2024.

Meanwhile, High Street Holdings will invest further in the expected rise in demand, and is planning a full refurbishment for the hotel while still appealing to the mid-scale, affordable traveller, Marriot said.

The 102-room, four-star hotel stands on the corner of George and Turbot Streets, and recently underwent a $1.2 million refresh with an upgrade to its guestroom floors. It has a leased restaurant, meeting facilities and on-site parking. YMCA Queensland bought the hotel site for $2.6 million in 1996 from Commonwealth Bank.

The Brisbane hotel is the fourth property that High Street Holdings has added to an Australian hospitality portfolio that includes The Miller Hotel in North Sydney, Rydges Perth Kings Square and Kennigo Hotel Brisbane.

High Street Holdings is one of several investment vehicles controlled by the Jaleel Family Trust, which was established by Mohamed Abdul Jaleel almost 50 years ago. Its portfolio includes a range of hotels and properties across Asia, including At Inn Hotel Nagoya in Japan, The Great Madras and The Daulat in Singapore, and an office building MIDF Tower in Malaysia, which it is looking to covert into a hotel.

ASX-listed hotel, cinema and resort group Event Hospitality & Entertainment, backed by Rich Lister Alan Rydge, is already managing the Brisbane hotel, which was recently renamed as George Hotel Brisbane.

The hotel was sold just eight days into its sales campaign, a testament to how Brisbane’s lack of hotel supply is driving demand, according CBRE Hotel’s Wayne Bunz, who brokered the property with colleague Hayley Manvell.

“The strongest thing about Brisbane is we have very limited new supply. We’ve got the Olympics coming. We’ve got demand far outstripping supply,” Bunz said.

“Like every other city where construction costs are ridiculously high, we probably won’t, in my opinion, see any new supply come online of any great levels right up until the Olympics.”

The deal demonstrated the confidence that overseas capital, especially from Singapore and Hong Kong, had in Brisbane’s hotel sector, he said.

High Street Holdings bought several Australian hotels between 2021 and 2022, including the 167-room Rydges North Sydney hotel, since been renamed to The Miller Hotel, for $75 million from Event Hospitality & Entertainment, as well as the 120-room Peppers Kings Square in Perth for about $26 million.

The Pepper’s building was Australia’s tallest prefabricated hotel when it was built by modular specialist Hickory in November 2016 at 17 storeys.