The former home of Melbourne Cup royalty is on the market
Once the home of horse racing legends including Makybe Diva and Mummify, the St Andrews Beach Brewery on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula is on the market.
Led by developer Andrew Purchase and with shareholders including Australian cricketer David Warner and Sydney jockey Tommy Berry, the sprawling 92-acre site, which includes a venue, brewery and large-scale orchard, is likely to attract a wide range of potential buyers.
No price has been disclosed but with the acreage and hospitality revenues, a price of about $20 million is likely.
In the mid-2000s the property was owned by the famous Freedman horse racing family and housed up to 80 thoroughbred horses with its grassed racetrack before they sold in 2015 to the current owners.
During the time it was owned by the Freedmans, 100 group-one winners called the stables home, including multiple Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Golden Slipper champions – Makybe Diva, Mummify and Alinghi.
Purchase bought the site and converted the stables into a venue for about 180 people and also turned the 1200-metre racetrack into an apple and pear orchard to produce a range of ciders for the on-site brewery.
The property is about an hour’s drive from Melbourne’s CBD and is near the Moonah Links Golf Course, Gunnamatta Surf Beach and Peninsula Hot Springs.
JLL hotels & hospitality’s Will Connolly, Peter Harper and Lachlan Persley are advising on the freehold sale which comes with significant coastal land-banking opportunities.
Connelly said interest has been shown from a diverse mix of buyers, ranging from high net-worth individuals and private syndicates to national hospitality operators and beverage brands that can build on the brewery’s labels, including the Barrel Aged Beer range.
He said the property also comes with 100 megalitres of annual groundwater rights and has a large solar panel farm.
Meanwhile, the former ASX-listed Redcape hotel group, now under the MA Financial banner, has sold another two pubs for a combined value of about $45 million. The sales are part of the group’s ongoing divestment strategy of non-core assets.
The latest two are the Shafston Hotel, in East Brisbane and the Central Hotel, Shellharbour, south of Sydney. This follows the recent sales of Redcape’s Aspley Hotel in Brisbane, and The Grove in Mackay.
The sale of the Shafston Hotel was brokered by HTL directors Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich, who said the large format Brisbane hotel has been sold to a Sydney-based hotel group which owns and operates multiple hotels, while the Central was sold to a local operator.
Redcape managing director Chris Unger said he was pleased with the progress of the asset sales, in what is a busy market.
“In a short space of time, we have exchanged contracts on more than $70 million worth of venues, at or above book value,” Unger said.