Kent Walker swoops on Botany’s Captain Cook in $35m pub play

Kent Walker’s Lesday Hotel Group has bought the Captain Cook Hotel in Botany.

The nation’s pub market is getting back on track with the Captain Cook Hotel in Botany, in Sydney’s south, changing hands for about $35m.

The property was picked up by pubs veteran Kent Walker, who also owns a swag of pubs across the city’s western suburbs. The deal shows how family buyers are again flexing their muscle in the sector.

Pubs have been marked by a period of price resetting and some sales have fallen over, with private property developer Virtical’s purchase of two of Sydney’s well-known watering holes, Kinselas and the Courthouse, ending up in court.

The Thomas family this month also decided to keep , as hopes of a record-breaking $175m sale were dashed as the mooted buyer was unable to raise the funds.

But the market is still faring well, with hotel company Redcape this month as deep-pocketed investors target large properties. It sold the Kings Head Tavern in Hurstville, the Australian Brewery in Rouse Hill and the Eastwood Hotel in Eastwood in separate deals that were the largest transactions in the sector this year.

Values had come under pressure with interest rates having risen and boomtime consumer spending having pulled back, but pubs are proving their resilience in harder times.

The Captain Cook Hotel in Botany who had owned it via his Highclere Hospitality Co.

The off-market transaction was negotiated by HTL directors Dan Dragicevich and Andrew Jolliffe.

Highclere purchased the venue for about $17m in 2020 and pumped funds into turning around the once old-fashioned, blue-collar venue.

“Highclere have overseen an outstanding transformation of the Captain Cook into a vibrant local community hub, now catering for a broad section of clientele and establishing the venue as a genuine drawcard for the area,” Mr Dragicevich said.

The purchase by Mr Walker’s Lesday Hotel Group took his portfolio to 11 venues spread across the Sydney metropolitan area and Wollongong.

The pub has a prominent position on Botany Rd and has trading privileges, a Will Dangar-designed beer garden, 30 pokies and 11 motel rooms.

“The Captain Cook exhibits all the fundamentals of a sustainable pub business model which, when coupled with the Bayside LGA development story, go a long way to ensuring sustainably prosperous earnings growth,” Mr Dragicevich said.

The sale of the imposing Captain Cook Hotel caps off a busy three months on the national hotel scene.

“Transaction volumes are demonstrably up on the same period last year. However, more saliently perhaps is the patently experienced complexion exhibited by the successful buyer universe that we are equally encouraged by,” Mr Jolliffe said.

Pub titan Arthur Laundy has also been active. Last month he outlaid about $20m buying The Light Brigade Hotel in Sydney’s inner-city Woollahra.

That acquisition added to the billionaire Laundy family’s collection of eastern suburbs assets, including the Watsons Bay Hotel and Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel.