Hemmes’ pub buy-up rolls on with $15m Hotel Centennial purchase

The purchase from the Medich family comes just weeks after he took his upmarket Merivale chain into beachside Bondi with the acquisition of the Royal Hotel Bondi for more than $30 million.

Hemmes also picked up the Vic on the Park in Marrickville and Collaroy’s beachfront hotel. This latest buy marks out yet another part of the city that the hospitality operator has taken his empire into as he snaps up well-known venues and adds the Merivale touch.

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Merivale in August bought The Collaroy for about $21 million and the group is also revamping the nearby Newport hotel, which was bought for close to $50 million in 2015. The bar tsar also splashed out $37.05 million on the Tennyson Hotel in Mascot last December, and had earlier signed contracts on The Alexandria Hotel.

Justin Hemmes bought The Hotel Centennial for $15 million. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Sydney’s pub market is booming and some big names are cashing in. High-profile businessmen John Singleton and Geoff Dixon’s Australian Pub Fund have sold half a dozen pubs, mainly to long-time industry families, as they see the market rising on the back of strong consumer spending.

Ray White’s Andrew Jolliffe brokered the latest sale of The Hotel Centennial. He also handled, in 2015, the sales of the family’s other hospitality properties, including the Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel.

The Hotel Centennial is a landmark double-storey hotel on a 780sqm Oxford St location opposite Centennial Park. The Medich family, via its Halcyon Hotels and headed by ­Anthony Medich, acquired the property in 2014 and undertook substantial renovations.

Jolliffe says that a substantial spread between cost of funding and yield for A-grade hospitality assets remains, but may contract further next year.