A 250 person strong crowd witnessed the record sale of an Australian hotel by auction, when the Asia Pacific Director of Hotels Andrew Jolliffe sold the Tennyson Hotel to Justin Hemmes yesterday for $37.05m.
Approximately 15 bids were registered with leading auctioneer Damien Cooley when the hammer finally came down after spirited bidding from a raft of well-known hotel families.
Leading hotel agent Jolliffe said the atmosphere in the room was conducive to a robust auction environment.
"Several factors contributed to the outstanding auction results yesterday, including the quality of hotel product, quality of bidders, deft skill of auctioneer Damien Cooley, and the market landscape which remains imbalanced in terms of supply meeting demand for A-grade hotel assets" advised Jolliffe.
"Auctions are at the genesis of our group philosophy, and the results yesterday in selling 100% of our stock under the hammer bears firm testament to the potency of a well-funded, strategic and deliberate auction sale process Jolliffe added.
"Both the Tennyson and Figtree hotels were aggressively pursued by astute investors throughout the auction, and the results are illustrative of the transparency our buyer base is seeking in terms of the finality and accessibility our auction processes employ" Jolliffe concluded.
The Tennyson hotel, situated on an impressive 1423sqm site on Botany Street in Mascot recently had approved, via Council, a DA for substantial repositioning of the gaming and bar offering - with vendor John Ferosof JDA Hotels acknowledging the upside available to purchaser Justin Hemmes.
"We had absolute faith in Andrew's guidance regarding the auction sale strategy, and I think everyone who attended yesterday would agree that the format was a huge success, irrespective what your level of participation was" said Feros. "Justin is quite clearly on another level in terms of his ability to extract value out of his hospitality investments, and we have little doubt his experience and superior product delivery will reward him handsomely in relation to the Tennyson" he concluded.
The purchaser of the Auswild family's Figtree Hotel for $5.375m, Andrew Denmeade, advised he was very pleased to be able to grow the operation of his Denfish business; which already owns and operates the nearby Unanderra and Shell Harbour hotels.
"We have had great success in the Illawarra with our current hotel investments, and look forward to repurposing the Figtree Hotel in the near future as well." "It was an impressive auction event yesterday, with no shortage of people vying for two seriously good hotel properties" concluded Denmeade.
Jolliffe, who was last month awarded the Number 1 Agent Internally for the second consecutive year, disclosed plans for Ray White Hotels Australia's next Auction Day; scheduled for Thursday 30 March 2017; and with several notable hotels set to again go under the hammer.
"We have an auction sale process formula we are confident in prosecuting, and have already sourced some high quality hotel product to bring to market early next year so as to continue this theme commensurate with the patent market demands" concluded Jolliffe.
