The Castlereagh Hotel and the Federal Hotel in Wellington have both been sold, setting a new record sale price for pubs in regional NSW.
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Pub Brokers & Advisory sold the two hotels as part of a five-hotel portfolio believed to be worth around $75 million belonging to MPK to a newly-formed syndicate known as Investment Management Group.
The other pubs in the sale were The Royal Hotel (Orange) The Dudley Hotel (Bathurst) and The Federal Hotel (Mudgee).
A figure suggested by industry insiders shows the Royal Hotel in Orange being brought for $24 million as part of the package.
Pub Brokers & Advisory managing director Nick Butler was retained to find a buyer for all five hotels via an off-market campaign.
Mr Butler said he met with the owners from MPK in November to start the process and each of the five hotels set a record sale price in their town.
"Staff were only informed of the sale after contracts were exchanged," he said.
"They are going to keep all the staff."
Mr Butler said all the hotels had strong maintainable earnings with 110 poker machine entitlements, and Dubbo also had robust accommodation numbers.
MPK Hotels, led by hoteliers Nick McKechnie and Nelson Kelly, had built an impressive portfolio over a decade of clever acquisition and asset improvement but they wanted to sell to spend more time with their wives and children.
"We have no doubt that the key to this sale was keeping it quiet to allow all of us to work through the challenges of selling five pubs at the same time," Mr McKechnie said.
The purchase was the first major hospitality acquisition for Canberra-based Investment Management Group Hotels.
IMG CEO Matthew Clowry said MPK did an impressive job of growing the portfolio of hotels.
"Our intention is to leverage these foundations to extend and evolve the hospitality experience for the people of Orange, Bathurst, Wellington, Mudgee and Dubbo," Mr Clowry said.
The MPK team is left with two leasehold hotels, including the Western Star Hotel in Dubbo which is also for sale on a re-stapled, freehold going concern basis.
MPK bought the Orange hotel in October 2019 and undertook an interior refurbishment last year.
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