Woolloomooloo wharf restaurant offerings comes with $25 million hopes

Woolloomooloo wharf restaurant offerings comes with $25 million hopes
Larry SchlesingerDecember 8, 2020

Four strata retail lots at the iconic Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo are up for sale for combined price hopes of $25 million.

The four lots – 5, 6, 7 and 8 – are occupied by high-profile restaurants Manta, Kingsleys and Otto are being sold on behalf of property investment syndicate Quantum Group by Michael Gilbert and Michael Stokes from Chesterton International.

Information on the Quantum Group website lists Cooper Wharf Road syndicate as having a 2000 fund vintage and a total value of $16.5 million. 

In late 2004, the leaseholds covering the four properties were transferred at $22 million to Tower Trust Limited, which replaced JP Morgan as custodian of Quantum’s property trusts. There were 80 members of the syndicate after its $22 million acquisition. 

A consultancy report compiled by Urbis at the same time reveals that total turnover from the four restaurants rose from $15.3 million per year in 2001 to $21.7 million per year in 2004, equating to an average turnover productivity level of $12,400 per square metre.

All tenants pay a variable turnover rent, which Chesterton gives as $450,000 per year for the four lots combined in the July 2011 investment report

The four lots comprise a net letable area of 1,857 square metres and generate income of $1.86 million a year.

In a December 2007 investor presentation the properties were valued at $28.5 million, a 30% increase on the purchase price, with a gearing level of 58%.

They are being sold in one line by expressions of interest closing Thursday, August 25, 2011. However, the buyer may undertake a strata division upon purchase.

Gilbert told Property Observer sales around the asking price would generate a yield of around 7%.

“There has been a good response from the advert: sexy waterfront real estate with long leases to high-profile tenants,” Gilbert says.

They are located on the western side of the Finger Wharf with spectacular views of the Sydney CBD skyline.

The properties are leased by three of Sydney’s highest-profile restaurants.

Lot 5, which comprises 540 square metres, is tenanted by specialist seafood restaurant Manta until September 2020 with a 10-year renewal option. It generates base rent of around $527,667 per year, including outgoings.

Lots 6 and 7 comprise a total of 746 square metres and are tenanted by Otto Ristorante until 2032 with a 10-year renewal option, generating annual rents of $527,667.

Lot 8 comprises 571 square metres and is tenanted by Kingsleys Steak & Crabhouse until July 2020. It generates rent of $524,650 per year. 

Lot 5 was previously listed for auction by Colliers agents Stephen Kovacs and John Bowie Wilson on June 8, 2011 but was passed in and withdrawn.

Finger Wharf is the largest timber-piled building in the world and was completed in 1915. Having fallen into disrepair in the late 1970s, the wharf was comprehensively refurbished in the 1990s and is anchored by the 104-room Blue Hotel, as well as some of the most expensive apartments in Sydney.

It also includes 104 apartments, with owners including actor Russell Crowe and broadcaster John Laws.

Crowe paid $14 million for his 1,300-square-metre penthouse suite at the end of the wharf, purchased in 2003, at the time the most expensive apartment purchase in Sydney.

Larry Schlesinger

Larry Schlesinger was a property writer at Property Observer

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