Pub group Solotel pushes into Sydney’s north west with Carousel Inn purchase

The pub boom is rolling on in the NSW capital with Bruce Solomon’s Solotel group the latest to expand.

Solotel CEO Elliot Solomon, right, at Barangaroo House. Picture: Carlos Walters

The ever-expanding Solotel group is behind the purchase of one of Sydney’s largest hotels, paying around $64m to acquire the Carousel Inn, in the second largest pub sale of the year.

One of the most popular hotels in Sydney’s north west, the Carousel Hotel at Rooty Hill was sold by the Stanford family, a second generation of publicans who after 40 years are exiting the industry.

The sale of the 21,000 sqm Carousel Inn, replete with 30 pokies, follows the recent $70m sale of the Stanford’s Vineyard Hotel at Vineyard around 56km west of the Sydney CBD, in a deal which was also negotiated by Andrew Jolliffe managing director of HTL.

Solotel’s acquisition of the Carousel Inn makes sense given its diverse portfolio of pubs and bars is firmly centred in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and city locations, where it controls the Golden Sheaf at Double Bay, the Opera Bar at Circular Quay and the Clock Hotel in inner city Surry Hills.

Solotel has swooped on the Carousel Inn at Rooty Hill.

Solotel chief executive Elliot Solomon said he was excited by the opportunity the Carousel Inn brings to Solotel … and was thrilled that the venue can be passed onto another family-owned hospitality operator.

“We look forward to engaging with the community to better understand how we can take the venue into the future. This purchase is an important first step into the north west – a key growth corridor for Sydney – as we look to continue to expand our diverse portfolio of pubs, bars and restaurants across Sydney”.

Meanwhile, Carousel Inn vendor Glen Stanford said he looked forward to the sale of the final piece of the family’s portfolio, “The Pub @ Rivo”, in the outer west’s suburb of Riverstone. More than $20m is expected for this asset.

HTL co-agent Dan Dragicevich said AAA-grade large format hospitality opportunities such as the Carousel Inn are increasingly scarce in metropolitan Sydney, and the price and yield achieved bears testimony to this fact.

For an asset class that enjoyed consolidated national sales of more than $1.5bn in the last financial year, the transaction cadence over the past month following the relaxation of travel restrictions, provides a strong argument for the replication of sale volumes.

“The sale of several hundred million worth of Sydney hotel assets in the past 5 weeks is a meaningful vector for the health of the asset class nationally,” Mr Jolliffe said.

“With further sales of materiality planned between now and the end of the year, we are confident in restating our submission with regard the continued and deep financial interest in the sector.”

Originally published as Pub group Solotel pushes into Sydney’s north west with Carousel Inn purchase