Star Group on a roll with $24m Qld pub deal
One of Queensland’s biggest privately owned pub groups, Steven Shoobridge’s Star Group, has snapped up a $24 million hotel in Rockhampton, the latest addition to a fast-growing portfolio of hotels, many of them in the state’s north.
Born at Tully in northern Queensland and armed with a Harvard Business School education, Shoobridge has led a rapid expansion of Star. Majority owned by Shoobridge, Star boasts 53 venues, more than 115 retail liquor outlets and six accommodation hubs.
While based mostly in Queensland, Star’s portfolio extends to South Australia as well. Along with dozens of small regional pubs, it includes some well-established Brisbane venues as well such as the Hotel West End, Railway Hotel, The Beaudesert Hotel and Richlands Hotel.
The latest addition is the Parkhurst Tavern in central Queensland’s Rockhampton, bought from O’Hara Hotel Group, led by Sean O’Hara and Nick Quinn.
NSW-based O’Hara Hotel Group had itself bought the Parkhurst Tavern just two years ago for $18 million in 2023 from long-time hotelier Terry Morrow. The venue has 36 gaming machines, an indoor playground and sits on a 6700 square metre block.
Star’s expanding empire ranges from the pubs, to bottle shops – under the Star Liquor, Star Warehouse, Sense of Taste and Bob’s Bulk Booze brands – and accommodation, such as the Rydges hotels on the Gold Coast and in Mackay. Star has more than 1300 gaming machines.
Its latest accounts record the acceleration in the group’s operations, with revenue jumping over 20 per cent to $414.5 million over the 2024 financial year. It bought the freehold to four hotels last year, along with the leasehold of two more.
Shoobridge was also one of the biggest investors in publicly listed pubs and shopping centre owner Eumundi Group before it was bought out by SEQ Hospitality Group earlier this year.
Star’s expansion comes amid a broader wave of consolidation across Queensland’s pubs sector and, more broadly, the country’s regional hotel industry. Among the movers are major players such as MA Financial’s Redcape Hotel Group, which outlaid $66 million purchasing three Brisbane pubs at the end of last year.
HTL Property’s Andrew Jolliffe, who brokered the Parkhurst Tavern sale, declined to comment on the specific transaction details but said sales greater than $20 million had become increasingly prevalent in Queensland over the past 12 months outside the state’s south-east.
“Notwithstanding this once-common thread, sales such as this in Rockhampton and other central and Far North Queensland regional centres such as Townsville, Mackay and Cairns are now featuring frequently with investors attracted to stable, diversified economies and positive-growth population bases,” Jolliffe said.
“While representative of certainly elevated transaction levels when compared to corresponding time periods, what isn’t surprising is the current market depth for investors wanting access to cross-border hospitality and tourism assets of increasingly amplified levels of value.”
The O’Hara Hotel Group has itself been responsible for a number of large pub deals in the last three years, including the sale of The Robin Hood Hotel in the NSW Central Tablelands for $51 million.
Another big player in the country’s regional pubs market is acquisitive fund manager Harvest Hotels, which set a national record for a regional, non-coastal pub when it purchased the Windsor Castle Hotel in Maitland for $51 million in mid-2022 from the O’Hara Hotel Group. O’Hara has more than 30 venues in its portfolio.
Glenn Price, Queensland director at HTL Property, who also helped broker the Parkhurst Tavern deal, said buyers from all states were willing to deploy more and more capital into the sector, as highlighted by the number of sales in Queensland this financial year.
“This has resulted in larger regional centres, such as Rockhampton, which have enjoyed consistent population growth and multi-faceted economic drivers, continuing to be highly sought-after by astute industry identities,” Price said.
