Harvest Hotels is ramping up its acquisition plans, kicking off with the $32 million purchase of a large-footprint hotel in Woy Woy on the NSW Central Coast.
It’s the first of a series of upcoming purchases for the group, and the Woy Woy Hotel has a large trading footprint, a town centre location, 30 gaming machines, an underused first-floor accommodation offering and a substantial drive-through bottleshop.
The Woy Woy Hotel is the first acquisition to be made via Harvest Hotels’ second fund, Harvest Pub Fund 2.
Harvest Hotels director and co-Founder Fraser Haughton said, “The Woy Woy Hotel strongly aligns with what we look for when acquiring a pub – it has good bones, a terrific reputation within its’ community, is centrally located, provides a great mix of revenue and diverse offerings for its patrons.
“To date, the venues that we operate have all been in major rural regional centres, so when the opportunity to purchase this iconic coastal venue arose, we felt it was the perfect addition to our portfolio and the right pub to kick off Harvest Pub Fund 2.”
Harvest Hotels will aim to maintain the authentic atmosphere of pub, although it does plan to undertake some capital works to expand its offering and see the pub become a genuine meeting place for more locals and visitors.
“We look forward to becoming a part of the Woy Woy community and embracing the potential of The Old Pub as it becomes a Harvest Hotel,” Haughton said.
The venue, which is located 90kms north of Sydney, was sold off-market by JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group on behalf of the McIntyre family who have owned and operated the pub since the late 1990’s.
Auro McIntyre, a career publican and second-generation owner of the hotel, said he plans to retire when the deal is finalised in December.
“For me, I felt the time was perfect and am really excited for the Harvest team – they have certainly got themselves a special hotel,” McIntyre said.
JLL Senior Vice President, Ben McDonald said the assets’ core attributes, value-add potential, and the general tightly held nature of hotels on the NSW Central Coast were key to delivering the successful outcome.
“In our view, the Woy Woy Hotel is one that is extremely hard to replicate given the undeniable trading proposition, key growth location and limited opportunity to enter the Central Coast market,” he said.
“We don’t typically see high volumes of transactions in this region which is understandable given the strong and growing performance of the businesses generally.”