Lantern pub sales
The Lantern Hotel Group has been divesting the balance of its pubs portfolio.
In a move that could fetch the pubs landlord more than $100 million, Lantern has already sold the Exchange Hotel in Newcastle and plans to sell the Courthouse Hotel in Cairns to Pelathon Pub Fund.
Pubs in the core Lantern portfolio include six Sydney hotels: the Ambarvale Hotel in the city’s south, the inner-city Crown Hotel in Surry Hills, Five Dock Hotel at Five Dock, the General Gordon Hotel in Sydenham, the Uncle Bucks Hotel at Mount Druitt in the west and the Waterworks Hotel in southeastern Botany.
In its note to the stock exchange a few days ago, the company said it needed shareholder approval at next month’s annual general meeting. The aim, it said, was to return funds to shareholders.
“The Lantern board has formed the view that it would be in the best interests of the group to obtain the flexibility of undertaking an orderly sell down of the group’s remaining hotel properties (including all non-core and core hotels),” Lantern said in its statement.
The Exchange Hotel was sold to noted Sydney hotelier Andrew Lazarus of Eastern Hotels Group for $6.625 million and the sale price represented a 7 per cent premium on the hotel’ book value at 31 December 2015.
However, it is much less than the $9.25 million that Lantern Hotels paid for the hotel in late 2014.
Meanwhile, Lantern and Pelathon have exchanged contracts for the Cairns pub.
It has a sales price of $6.25 million, representing a 28 per cent premium of the hotel’s book value as at 31 December 2015.
The deal is expected to be finalised in October once the liquor and gaming approvals from the Queensland Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation are hammered down.
Pelathon’s managing director, Jaz Mooney, said the Courthouse hotel has a lot of potential.
“The Courthouse Hotel is right beside the Cairns Regional Gallery, downtown in what is really the historical centre of Cairns. It’s our belief that the Courthouse is the centre of the Cairns community and that the whole area should be activated for both locals and tourists in the area,” Mooney told The Shout.
by Leon Gettler, September 26th 2016
