De Angelis family snaps up Raby Tavern and shops for $35m as pubs boom continues

Industry stalwarts the De Angelis family swoop on the Raby Tavern and Shopping Centre in a $35m play.

Raby Tavern and shopping centre sold within two weeks of a four-week campaign.

The western Sydney pub boom is rolling on with industry stalwarts the De Angelis family swooping on the Raby Tavern and Shopping Centre in a $35m play.

The deal will add to their empire of pubs across the city’s west and signals another sale of a gaming heavy pub with upside from commercial developments.

There has been a series of purchases of western Sydney hotels with pub tsars Justin Hemmes and Arthur Laundy buying up key properties, partly as they are tipped to stay resilient even if consumer spending remains flat.

READ MORE: Hemmes broadens his game plan | Arthur Laundy’s $42m show of faith in pubs market

The Raby Tavern and Shopping Centre had been on the block for just two weeks out of a planned four-week public sale campaign.

The large-format hotel was brought to sold via brokerage agency HTL Property for its long-time owners the Sydney-based Walker family.

HTL Property national pubs director Dan Dragicevich said hotels next to shopping centres were always keenly sought.

Pub tycoon Justin Hemmes bought one of Sydney’s biggest gaming pubs, the Allawah Hotel.

“The ownership of this retail space at Raby enables the purchaser additional levers for expansion of the licenced footprint, and makes available the potential for a larger mixed-use development project in the future,” Mr Dragicevich said.

Gaming exposure

Sydney pubs have been selling at a rapid clip as big owners seek to boost their gaming exposure.

Private hoteliers Michael Wiggins and Joanne Cassar last week bought the St George Hotel in the western Sydney suburb of Belmore from the listed Redcape Hotel Group for $47.1m.

Mr Wiggins and Ms Cassar had recently sold the Oxford Hotel in Sydney’s Drummoyne for $41.75m to pub mogul, Mr Laundy.

Pub tycoon Justin Hemmes is also diversifying his hotel empire and has bought one of Sydney’s biggest gaming pubs, the Allawah Hotel, in the city’s southwest, for about $34m.

A separate partnership between the White family/JDA Hotels also sold the Tennyson Hotel in Mascot to Merivale in one of Sydney’s highest-priced auctions for just over $37m in 2016.

HTL Property Asia Pacific regional director Andrew Jolliffe said that most buyers owned a series of pubs or had been in the sector for generations.

He said the big banks had re-engaged and were seeking to finance quality operators.