Forgettable deal for Virtical as Adelphi sells for a loss
Seventeen months after agreeing to buy Flinders Lane’s Adelphi Hotel for c$25 million ex-GST, receivers for Sydney based Virtical have sold it for about $19m.
Local hotel investor Mazen Tabet is the buyer.
It will now be operated by 1834 Hotels, led by Andrew Bullock, which operates dozens of venues nationally, with a focus in South Australia.
The ground floor is leased to NOMAD restaurant.
Mr Tabet will add the freehold going concern to a portfolio also including the Royce on St Kilda Road and South Yarra’s Lyall Hotel, the latter which reopened in late 2022 after a major refurbishment.
The investor also owns prominent freeholds – the Village Belle in St Kilda, which cost c$31m in late 2021, and the Portsea Hotel on the Mornington Peninsula, held since 2016.
Next chapter for Adelphi
With 34 rooms and suites, a cocktail bar and boardroom, the eight level Adelphi, developed in 1989 from a 1930s warehouse, is perhaps best recognised for its rooftop pool, cantilevered over Flinders Ln (story continues below).
Virtical bought it as part of a spending spree near the end of a boom for the pub and small hotel sectors.
Another freehold going concern – Sydney’s Republic – which cost $41.8m last August, recently traded for $32m.
Formerly led by Mark Toma, the group was last month put into administration by non-bank lender Bond Finance.
That interest’s administrator, BRI Ferrier, drove the Adelphi on-sale.
JLL’s Nick MacFie and Peter Harper with Savills’ Nick Lower and Benson Zhou were the agents.
Roger and Carson was this month appointed liquidator for Virtical which still retains in Sydney, neighbouring pubs, the Kinselas and Courthouse, in Darlinghurst, purchased last September, and the Metropolitan on George Street in town.
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