John Singleton sells Newtown’s Marlborough Hotel for $30 million

JOHN Singleton’s Australian Pub Fund has offloaded another chunk of their massive hotel portfolio, selling Newtown’s flagship Marlborough Hotel for a rumoured $30 million today.

Landmark watering hole ... Newtown’s Marlborough Bar. Picture: Gordon McComiskie

JOHN Singleton’s Australian Pub Fund has made a profit of just over $20 million today, selling Newtown’s Marlborough Hotel for just under $35 million just four years after paying $12.7 million for the popular watering hole.

The pub, which Singleton and partner Geoff Dixon scooped up back in 2012, has been acquired by Solotel — the pub group headed up by multi-millionaire Bruce Solomon and celebrity chef Matt Moran.

The addition of the Marlborough Hotel to Solotel’s sizeable portfolio now positions Solotel alongside Justin Hemmes as Sydney’s most powerful hospitality group.

The Marlborough Hotel.

Moran, who came on board as joint managing director in March last year, described their new purchase — which is exempt from the NSW government’s controversial lockout law — as having “enormous potential”.

“IT’s a great piece of real estate and it’s great addition for us because we have a few other great properties in the area,” Moran said.

Solotel, founded 30 years ago by Solomon, also owns the nearby Courthouse Hotel, The Bank, Petersham Public House and The Australia Hotel in Chippendale.

Meanwhile the high-profile sale is the latest in a swath of sales by Singleton and Dixon who announced plans to sell about $60 million worth of their hotel interests in November last year.

Since then they have sold five hotels, with three more — including Kinsela’s in Darlinghurst — still on the market.

But today’s sale of The Marlborough Hotel marks probably their highest-profile sale given the huge surge in popularity of Newtown which is exempt from the NSW government’s lockout laws.

John Singleton at the Marlborough Hotel

Celebrity chef Matt Moran is the new co-owner of the Marly.

It’s understood Singleton and Dixon spent several million dollars upgrading the hotel, with the addition of a first-level restaurant Peaches and improvements to the outdoor dining areas.

Ray White’s Asia Pacific Director Andrew Jolliffe, who negotiated the sale, said the hotel had attracted interest from overseas buyers before Solotel, which boasts a portfolio of more than 30 pubs and restaurants, closed in.

“Ultimately, and as we have often experienced, it was expert domestic knowledge in the form of the well-known hospitality management company Solotel, which prevailed above wide interest in order to secure this generational piece of hospitality property,” Jolliffe said.

The sale leaves Singleton and Dixon with five hotels still to sell.

Along with Kinselas, they are also seeking offers for Unity Hall in Balmain, The Vic on the Park in Marrickville and Brisbane’s Stock Exchange and Elephant Arms.

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