Source : THE AGE NEWS
Capital Gain
Sydney entrepreneur Le Ho is proving there is money to be made from other people’s rubbish. Ho, known as the Garbage Queen, is selling her Cleanaway industrial property portfolio for an estimated $50 million.
And if you need more evidence waste is not worthless, look to Ian Malouf, who became a billionaire after founding Dial-a-Dump, which he sold to Bingo Industries in March 2019 for $577.5 million.
Ho, after coming to Australia from Vietnam in the early 1980s, has built an empire out of rubbish.
She first bought what was then a loss-making business called Capital City Waste Services in 2010 for about $50,000. Six years later, she sold it for $10 million and recycled the cash into the Cleanaway portfolio she is now selling.
Ho has four properties in Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland, which are leased to ASX-listed Cleanaway under a triple net lease arrangement, generating a combined passing net income of about $1.45 million a year.
The buildings are at 66 Links Road and 40 Christie Street in St Marys, Sydney; 83-87 Dohertys Road in Laverton North, Melbourne; and 8-12 Krypton Street in Narangba, Queensland. They cover 4.12 hectares and a total building area of 13,846 square metres, providing highly specialised industrial infrastructure that supports Cleanaway’s hazardous and regulated waste operations across key national markets.
The properties are being offered either individually or in one line in a sale campaign managed by Knight Frank’s Orlando Maciel, James Reeves, Harley Bowen and Henry McKeering.
Heritage hotels
Private investor Petrus has snapped up the Commercial Hotel in Krambach on the NSW Mid North Coast for a price said to be in the “low $3 millions”. Vendor, Holdam group, had owned the pub for about 11 years.
The pub has historical significance. It was built by hotel baron Patrick Gallagher’s great-grandfather, J.J. Gallagher, in the late 1800s, some time after the Gallagher family emigrated from Ireland in the 1850s.
The Gallagher family, still in the pub business, recently spent $140 million buying the well-known Oaks pub in Neutral Bay to add to its large portfolio.
The Commercial, a two-storey country hotel on a 4302-square-metre site, has extensive outdoor trading areas, bistro facilities, five gaming machines and a lease in place until October 2032.
Leonard Bongiovanni, of MQ & Associates, who negotiated the transaction, said regional hotel investments continued to attract strong interest from private investors seeking long-term income security combined with exposure to lifestyle-friendly locations.
Meanwhile, further south at 1 Monaro Highway is the Bredbo Inn, which is on the market with a price tag about $1.8 million.
The heritage built pub, built in 1836, had a Cobb & Co stables built at the back to host horse carriages travelling from town to town.
It now serves as the ultimate first stop for snow-goers heading from Sydney and Canberra to the Snowy Mountains.
After eight years at the helm, owners Raquel and Mathew Thomas have decided it is time to slow down, and move closer to their grandchildren in the Illawarra region.
The hotel sits on a large 8500-square-metre site with a beer garden full of memorabilia. Locals claim it was a popular watering hole for A.B. “Banjo” Paterson, who revealed to a barman that horseman Charlie McKeahnie was the true identity of the protagonist of his poem The Man from Snowy River.
Ray White Rural Yass director Simon Southwell is marketing the property.
Crystal Street
Private developer Develotek is offloading a development site in inner-west Petersham that has planning approval for a 76-studio co-living building.
The 920-square-metre corner site at 452-460 Parramatta Road has frontage to Parramatta Road, Crystal Street and Queen Street, and is a short walk from the station and Norton Street dining strip opposite the Clarence Hotel.
No price was disclosed but the co-living UKO Newtown Village was sold by Knight Frank agents for $10.425 million in May. It was converted from the former Sydney Confectionary Warehouse in 2019.
Another 2944-square-metre amalgamated co-living development site, Wollstonecraft, in tightly held lower North Shore, sold through JLL for $50 million in May to the Singapore-listed student accommodation specialist Wee Hur.
Knight Frank’s Tim Holtsbaum, Anthony Pirrottina and Demi Carigliano are handling the Petersham sale.
carolynannecummins@gmail.com
The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.
