Business partners and long-time mates, Geoff Dixon and John Singleton, have sold the Toxteth pub to Mitchell Waugh's Public House Management Group (PHMG) as part of their program to reinvest in new ventures.
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The asset is within the Riversdale Group, under the Australian Pub Fund banner, which the two businessmen run with well-known investor Mark Carnegie.
Riversdale was founded by Paddy Coughlan and Rod "Ned" Kelly and bought the Toxteth, in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Glebe for $10 million in early 2011.
PHMG paid about $21 million for the Toxteth.
The Australian Pub Fund (APF), founded by Mr Carnegie, ex-Qantas chief Mr Dixon and ad man and investor Mr Singleton, was built up over six years and was worth about $300 million, before some recent sales. They are also selling The Marlborough Hotel in Newtown.
The sale, the fourth for the group, follows the previously parked float when the IPO landscape shifted sideways in 2014, and had meant the group preferred to consolidate and focus on earnings as opposed to taking on new investors or substantially increasing the size of the portfolio as an ASX listing might have required.
Speaking on behalf of APF, Matthew Beach said the sale of the hotel met divestment criteria previously determined by the group.
"Fundamentally, the sale price achieved represented a material accretion of value when compared to the purchase price, and is consistent on a comparable yield basis to where we have been prepared to sell other hotel properties owned by the fund," Mr Beach said.
Ray White Group's Asia-Pacific director, Andrew Jolliffe, is advising on the sale and said the Toxteth was outside Sydney's lock-out laws area, and had enjoyed a strong trading platform over the past two years.
PHMG also owns Sydney hotel properties including The Woollahra Hotel, Paddington's Royal and Four in Hand hotels.
"Our philosophy is not complicated. We look for opportunities to acquire A-grade commercial property holdings in destinations underpinned by active patronage fundamentals; and whereby we can apply our deliberate hospitality strategies in order to grow revenue across all income streams," Mr Waugh said.
"The purchase of this significant fringe CBD hotel asset is consistent with others made by the very well-credentialled PHMG; and the recent operational improvements made to other hotels recently bought for the stable, such as those made to Mosman's Buena Vista, are patently available to the group again in respect of this acquisition," Mr Jolliffe said.
"I believe the market conditions that have provided the fertile base for such prosperous activity will remain for the foreseeable future.
"The confluence of the historically low interest rate cycle, ready availability of senior debt, the low Australian dollar driving inbound revenues and the strength of weekly cash receipts when collectively distilled, render the opportunity to acquire A-grade hospitality property wholly compelling."
Reflecting the demand for pubs, after 31 years the owners of the Anglers Rest Hotel, Jeff Watts and Mal McKellar, have decided to retire from pub life.
The hotel is near the Hawkesbury river and station.
The hotel is for sale through brokers Greg Haines of John Parsons hotels and John Malone of Central Consulting Sydney.
Mr Malone said the agents were expecting strong interest in the hotel as it had been managed by the same owners for a long period and was close to Sydney in the sought-after Central Coast corridor.
"With the demand for Sydney hotels being so strong, the Anglers Rest - being only 45 mins from Sydney and given the price range being sought - should interest a wide variety of potential buyers," Mr Malone said.
