Operator of The Archer Hotel in North Adelaide goes into administration
THE operator of historic North Adelaide pub The Archer Hotel signed a contract to sell the business a week before placing the company into administration.
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THE operator of historic North Adelaide pub The Archer Hotel signed a contract to sell the business a week before placing the company into administration.
The directors of Huntsman Hotel Pty Ltd — the entity named after the venue’s former name — called in administrator Duncan Powell on Friday after racking up $300,000 in unpaid rent and taxes.
However the venue will continue to trade, according to Duncan Powell’s Chris Powell, while he finalises a sale agreement reached between Huntsman Hotel’s directors and an unnamed buyer.
“The business is trading, there’s been a sale of the business and the contract was signed prior to our appointment,” Mr Powell said.
“We’ll continue to trade the business to make sure it continues through to the finalisation of the transfer.
“Huntsman Hotel Pty Ltd have only owned it for a relatively short period of time. We’ve been advised the business wasn’t trading as well as the purchaser (Huntsman Hotel) understood it was operating and the business was struggling really from the time it was purchased, but they’ve brought it up to a point where it’s trading at a reasonable basis.”
Mr Powell said the new buyer was finalising their liquor licence, which was likely to take up to six weeks.
In the event the sale doesn’t proceed, Mr Powell said he would be forced to “look at what alternatives there are” for the business.
“No doubt, leasehold hotels have found it difficult in recent years and there are numerous examples of hotels being bought and sold at significant discounts as the market’s got tougher,” he said.
“Our aim is to keep the doors opened. The business appears to have improved in terms of trading.”
The directors and shareholders of Huntsman Hotel — Matthew Mitchell and Brett Viney — are also directors of Bloody Mary Group, which counts the Saracens Head hotel in the CBD and Stone’s Throw at Norwood in its portfolio of hotels and other hospitality venues.
In January, the group bought the Kincraig hotel at Naracoorte, reopening the doors after that venue fell into administration a month earlier.
Mr Powell said those venues would be unaffected by The Archer administration.
“The hotels and businesses they are involved with are owned by different entities and while there is some commonality with some of the directors, there are different groups involved with each of the hotels and businesses,” he said.
Mr Powell said trade creditors of The Archer were owed “tens of thousands of dollars”, while employees were owed a small amount of superannuation.
Under plans revealed in 2016, Bloody Mary Group planned to revert The Archer’s name back to The Huntsman Hotel as part of a $2 million-plus transformation of the heritage-listed building.
The plans, revealed after its acquisition of the venue from ALH Group, included the construction of a three-level, terraced beer garden at the rear of the building.
At the time, Mr Viney said his company was trying to “change what people think about the pub experience”.
“This pub will be a benchmark for what pubs should be like in the future in SA,” he said at the time.
In June, Bloody Mary Group sold the Saracens Head property for $2.8 million to former Adelaide United defender Ersan Gulum and wife Emel.
Huntsman Hotel’s first creditors’ meeting will be held on Monday October 29. Mr Viney did not return calls from The Advertiser.
