Ex-Wallaby Snaps Up Inner Sydney Pub

Former Wallaby Bill Young will add another pub asset to his stable with the Royal Hotel at Ryde, which cost him almost $40 million.

It follows the Sydney-based hotelier’s purchase of the Five Dock Hotel in Sydney for about $30 million in 2016. He also owns the Concord West and three other venues.

National hotelier Patrick Gallagher offloaded the Royal in an off-market hotel sale through HTL specialist agents Dan Dragicevich and Andrew Jolliffe.

“The Royal at Ryde [purchase] follows our 2020 acquisition and consequent refurbishment of the Illinois Hotel [in Five Dock], and fits perfectly into our geographical wheelhouse,” Young said.

“Strategically, we are satisfied that we have now assembled a complementary mix of full-service hotel offerings in a demographic we know well, and will continue to enjoy our interactions with for many years to come.”

There has been a rush to return to the pub market post-Covid with key players including Justin Hemmes and the Laundy family engaging in bidding wars to secure regional assets, including the Lennox Hotel.

Jolliffe said key players in the sector were recalibrating their portfolios in the post-Covid landscape.

“We maintain our view that those parties who take advantage of the current trading conditions, including debt market liquidity, will enjoy significant downstream reward,” Jolliffe said.

The Royal Hotel ranked 157 in the State’s Top 200 gaming list in 2020.

“The Royal has always been a robust and proven cash flow generator, and as such it deserved a sale price commensurate with the material barriers to entry, including lack of available stock and the weight of investment capital looking for a foothold in the marketplace,” Dragicevich said.