Melbourne's Largest Hotel Sale In Six Years Goes For $142.9m

A popular Melbourne landmark hotel, student accommodation and office complex has sold to a fund manager for $142.9 million.

Elanor Investors Group purchased the well-known

Bell City from

Asian Pacific Group.
Colliers International who handled the sale said it was the largest sale in the Melbourne hotel sector in six years, signalling the strength of the area.

According to The Australian, the sale of Bell City in Preston will see a reorganisation of the Deague family’s holdings, with Asian Pacific Group chief executive Will Deague, saying: “We have made the decision to sell Bell City for family succession planning reasons, allowing my brother Jonathan and I to take further control of the family business.”

The brothers have lifted the company’s portfolio in Melbourne and also in regional Victoria, SA and Queensland. The family’s Art Series Hotel Group runs six hotels and plans to grow this to ten hotels by 2017.

The company hopes to add a mixed-use development to Sydney’s Box Hill with 600 apartments and hotel rooms as well as in Adelaide where they will develop the city’s tallest residential tower, Vue.

The company also has their eye on the iconic Richmond Malt site in inner-Melbourne. The site however comes with significant heritage and environmental issues.

Bell City has a total of 844 rooms split between 383 hotel rooms and units, and 461 budget and student accommodation rooms. It also has 6500 square metres of ­office space, retail outlets, and an event centre.

The hotel accommodation is set for further overhaul in the wake of the Deague family’s sale, with the Mantra Group to come in as operator of the hotel property.

Elanor will launch four specialist-managed funds on the back of the deal, with the listed group also raising $12.6m yesterday through investment bank Moelis.

Bell City was bought on an initial yield of 8.5 per cent and there is the potential to expand, as part of the site carries a permit for 401 apartments in two towers