By Andy Young
The Lantern Hotels Group has completed its planned divestment of pubs, with the sale of the Crown Hotel in Sydney’s Surry Hills.
The Crown was the last remaining pub in the Lantern portfolio, after the group’s board proposed an asset sell-off late last year.
The Crown Hotel, a landmark top-200 gaming hotel, sold for $26.1m and was bought by Damian Kelly’s Peak Investments. Fairfax Media reports that well-known Sydney publican Jason Marlow will take over the management of the hotel. The hotel covers four levels each with bars plus function space, manager’s accommodation and eight recently renovated boutique accommodation rooms.
With the sale of the Crown Hotel, Lantern has completed its pub asset sell-off, which began with selling ‘non-core’ venues in the first half of last year and was then cemented when shareholders approved the sell-down strategy in November.
Since then Lantern has sold Uncle Bucks and Ambarvale Hotels in western Sydney, the Courthouse Hotel in Cairns, Five Dock Hotel and the Waterworks Hotel in Botany.
The Crown Hotel sale went through Andrew Jolliffe of Ray White and Daniel Dragicevich of CBRE.