By Andy Young
Sam Arnaout’s Iris Capital has bought the Gaslight Inn, which is adjacent to the Colombian Hotel that the group bought in October.
The sale highlights something of a revival for Sydney’s Oxford Street and inner Eastern Suburbs, with selling agent Ray White saying it is the 14th hotel it has sold in the area in the last few years.
Having already bought the Colombian in October for $18m, the addition of the Gaslight Inn gives Iris two considerable commercial properties and three street frontages in the Oxford Street precinct.
The sale marks a busy period for Ray White Director Asia Pacific Region, Andrew Jolliffe, who last week sold the Tennyson Hotel to Merivale for a record hotel auction price of $37.05m. Also, as TheShout reported last week, John Singleton and Geoff Dixon are looking to offload hotels from their Riversdale Group and have currently engaged Jolliffe in the sale of Kinselas Hotel, just off Oxford Street.
Jolliffe said: "Kinselas is a serious piece of real estate and with annual gaming revenues alone surpassing $3m, the opportunity to secure an Eastern Suburbs freehold hotel with an historically strong cash flow underwriting the investment, is magnetic."
The Gaslight Inn is a popular live music venue, and the purchase price has not been revealed.
Further indications of the strength of the pub market in Sydney were highlighted with the latest sale by the Lantern Group. Having already sold a number of core venues Lantern has announced that it has sold the Waterworks Hotel in Botany to private interests for around $17.3m.