Former Sydney Lord Mayor Nelson Meers has acquired the Crossroads Hotel in Casula in a national record transaction of about $160 million.

The previous highest price paid for a pub was the $104 million acquisition of the Beach Hotel at Byron Bay in February 2020 by fund manager MA Financial (then called Moelis Australia).

The hotel, located in the fastest growing LGA in NSW, was sold in an off market deal negotiated exclusively by Andrew Jolliffe and Dan Dragicevich at HTL Property.

The last time the pub hit the headlines was the centre of a major COVID-19 outbreak in July 2020.

Set to benefit from the activation of the Badgery’s Creek airport, the hotel is described by the agents as “the virtual gateway between Sydney and the State’s South West”.

“This is a key strategic acquisition for our company, with the hotel’s highly successful food and beverage model serving over 4000 dining experiences each week,” said Nelson Meers Group CEO Simon Meers.

“We are very excited to continue to serve this growing, vibrant and broad community as we look to expand this type of high quality offering across our hotel network.”

The Meers family paid outlaid $50 million in 2019 for the Belmore Hotel in Sydney’s Burwood and $45 million in 2017 for Hurstville’s Ritz Hotel.

“The materiality of the Crossroads Hotel sale recalibrates values across the national hotel landscape, and promotes a momentum that will see up to $1billion worth of sales concluded in the last quarter of this financial year alone,” said HTL Property’s managing director Andrew Jolliffe.

Pub sale sets Newcastle record

Hot on the heels of the all-time Australian record sale of the Crossroads Hotel, HTL Property agents Dan Dragicevich and Andrew Jolliffe have set a Newcastle Hotel record following the sale of the ocean front Caves Beach Hotel.

The exclusive sale by HTL, conducted off-market, was concluded on behalf of owners Royal Hotels.

“We have enjoyed our time building the Caves Beach Hotel business and relationships within the community, and look favourably towards the continued growth of the business by such esteemed operators as are Oscars Hotels so widely renowned,” said a Royal Hotels representative.

The purchasers of the picturesque hotel and accommodation asset, the acquisitive Oscars Hotels, is headed by highly regarded brothers Bill and Mario Gravanis.

“The sheer scale and waterfront positioning of the Caves Beach Hotel is a remarkable feature of the significant asset,” said Dragicevich.

“Notwithstanding, the diversity of revenue streams feeding into the business is also a most powerful differentiator.”

“Material hospitality businesses with $10million+ of annual revenues and affixed to significant land holdings in coastal locations remain at the very vanguard of key investor acquisition objectives nationally,” added Jolliffe.

“However the reality is that there are very few of these unique business and coastal property plays in existence generally, let alone able to be acquired.”

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