Billionaire pub mogul Arthur Laundy adds into Port Macquarie empire with $47m Tacking Point Tavern buy

Billionaire pub mogul Arthur Laundy has forked out more than $50m buying regional taprooms last week, including $47m near the booming township of Port Macquarie.

Publican Arthur Laundy. Picture: David Swift.

Billionaire pub mogul Arthur Laundy has forked out more than $50m buying regional pubs in the past week, including around $47m buying the Tacking Point Tavern near the booming NSW regional township of Port Macquarie, north of Sydney.

The Laundy family, which control 80 pubs and hotels on the eastern seaboard, have struck a deal with local Port Macquarie hotel identity Alistair Flower of Flower Hotels to buy the large format 6700 sqm hotel on Ocean Drive near the Lighthouse Plaza Shopping Centre.

“We recently acquired the Mercure Centro Hotel in Port Macquarie with Alistair, and look forward to furthering our family’s relationship with him via this next exciting purchase,” said Mr Laundy.

“We will continue to look at opportunities both in capital cities and in regional centres in order to grow our family business, and to leverage the experience and scale we’ve built over three generations,” he said.

The selling agent, HTL Property’s Dan Dragicevich said the Tacking Point Tavern which was acquired from the Mattick family ticks all the investment fundamental boxes that ‘astute large format hoteliers gravitate towards’ including efficient tavern style reconfiguration, onsite parking and strategic location adjacent to a major retail precinct within an exclusive neighbourhood trading catchment.

In March, the Laundy family purchased the Mercure Centro hotel in Port Macquarie for around $25m marking its first acquisition in the area which is popular with Sydney retirees. At the time the Laundy family said the opportunity was ‘too good to refuse’ to gain a foothold in the mid North Coast town. Fronting William St, the hotel sports 72 rooms and is near the Town Beach.

In an interview on Sunday, Mr Laundy told The Australian he likes the Port Macquarie area and was very happy with his investment in the Mercure hotel four month’s ago.

“It’s a very good deal,” he said, adding that if something else is in the offing in the Port Macquarie area he would also consider acquiring it.

In the NSW Central West Mr Laundy said he had also last week acquired the Jack Duggans Irish Pub in the main street of the popular township of Bathurst paying $6.5m.

Meanwhile, the Laundy family are putting the finishing touches to developing a number of regional hotel assets including a large format tavern in the Calderwood Valley near the scenic township of Jamberoo on the NSW south coast.

Mr Laundy said he has recently taken possession of the Calderwood Tavern from the builders and was in the process of hiring staff. He plans to open it within the next month.

Meanwhile the sale of the Tacking Point Tavern by HTL Property brings the firm’s total volume of NSW sales this calendar year to date to more than $800m.

“We’re passionate about creating and protecting wealth for our valued clients, and as evidenced by our recent national market activity, the asset class remains positively underwritten by robust and attractive fundamentals,” said HTL Property Managing Director, Andrew Jolliffe.

Mr Jolliffe would not confirm the successful price paid for the Tacking Point Tavern, other than to reveal the agency’s market guidance was again achieved.