Pub mogul Sam Arnaout dives further into Alice Springs with buy of Red Centre’s Mercure and Todd Hotel
Sam Arnaout has further bulked up his Northern Territory hospitality footprint buying four hotels valued at more than $60m in Alice Springs.
Casino and pub billionaire Sam Arnaout has further bulked up his Northern Territory hospitality footprint buying four hotels valued at more than $60m in Alice Springs as domestic tourism in the Red Centre continues its revival.
The Sydney-based Mr Arnaout is no stranger to the Northern Territory given he purchased the Alice Springs Casino for $105m last year.
This time around Mr Arnaout’s Iris Capital has purchased the Mercure Hotel in Alice Springs, along with the Gap Tavern, the Todd Tavern, and the Aurora Hotel, one of the oldest hotels in the remote township, from a series of separate vendors.
More motel purchases are expected to be announced in the Northern Territory by Mr Arnaout later this week.
“In addition to our casino and Crowne Plaza accommodation operation, the multiple-asset roll up provides additional scale, and a clear platform to leverage human resource strategies and other synergies required to prosecute the high quality hospitality experience we are determined to deliver our clients in Australia’s Top End,” said Mr Arnaout, chief executive of Iris Capital, in a statement on Thursday night.
The deals were negotiated by HTL Property who described Alice Springs as an “important investment hub.”
HTL Property managing director Andrew Jolliffe said opportunities to amass high quality concentrations of unrepeatable hospitality businesses are rare.
“We’re continually working with forward thinking clients like Iris Capital to unlock investments which embody an amalgam of scale and substance.”
It is understood that HTL is working with Iris Capital in relation to further acquisitions in the Northern Territory which will be concluded later this week. He is also looking to fork out around $70m renovating the Alice Springs Casino which was previously known as Lassetter’s.
Further south, Mr Arnaout is also looking to seize control of Casino Canberra for $60m. Last week, Mr Arnaout spent $80m buying the Strathfield Hotel in Sydney’s Inner West. Closer to the Sydney CBD he is developing the Queensgate residential complex at Potts Point, a series of luxury residential buildings where prices start from $1.8m.
Mr Arnaout made his first appearance in the fourth annual The List: Australia’s Richest 250 in The Weekend Australian this year.
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