By Triana O'Keefe, editor Australian Hotelier
The family-run Bayfield Hotel Group has officially announced the Newport Arms is on the market.
After years of being inundated with unsolicited offers by hoteliers and developers alike, the Bayfield family have decided to publicly market the hotel for the first time in the venue’s 135-year history.
“It was a family decision and the timing seemed right in the market,” said Wayne Bayfield.
The agent handling the Newport Arms campaign is Andrew Jolliffe of Ray White Hotels who is confident the venue’s assets will attract substantial bids.
“The Newport Arms Hotel is well known both nationally and internationally, and the 11,500 sqm waterfront site is clearly a very valuable asset,” Jolliffe told PubSales.
“As such, the sale of the hotel at a time when debt markets are entirely accessible, and the cost of funding at a cyclical low, provides would be suitors with the best possible opportunity to fund an acquisition of this nature.
“The investment topography really doesn’t get much better,” he said.
Jolliffe suggested there are large sections of the property which will substantially reward capital investment, “in particular the gaming room and level one area”.
“The Bayfield family are quite willing and clearly capable to conduct the capital works themselves, however, in the interim have decided on an international public sale campaign to provide others the opportunity to acquire a piece of history and leave their own mark in terms of future operation and site development.”
The Bayfield family has owned the hotel since February 1991 and told PubSales they have no intention of exiting the hotel industry.