Cork’s Reardens in advanced sale talks for up to €30m

Reports emerged last month of the intention by UK-based Attestor Capital to expand its Irish bars and hospitality venues portfolio to locations outside of Dublin, with large, cash-churning businesses in Galway and Cork cities actively in its sights since last year.

A private equity group, Attestor Capital - with a fund of up to €900m to invest across several sectors - has spent up to €100m to date in Dublin, with its largest purchase the Brazen Head on the city quays for c €16m, and the Bleeding Horse for over €9m, and has spent c €35m to acquire five other Dublin bars.

Curiously, Attestor is buying at a time of widespread struggles in the licensed and hospitality sectors, making most of its Irish acquisitions in covid and post-pandemic times.

“They buy ‘Big Ticket’ bars, ones with major turnover and profit margins; they do their due diligence on the figures and if they add up they buy at a price that makes sense to them,” said one market insider familiar with their model.

While one significant acquisition outside of Dublin has stalled in recent months, possibly the Connacht Hospitality Group Attestor is particularyl keen to buy in Cork and has looked at several options locally with multi-million euro annual turnover.

By any metric, Reardens would be the ‘Big Ticket,’ and has been an acknowleged cash cow for decades, a legend along the lines of Dublin's Copper Face Jacks, itself up for sale with a €40m price tag cited. 

It's understood Reardens turnover last year was in the region of €18m, with a profit reported of just under €4m.

Reardens is in an historic, multi-level building facing the courthouse between the city centre and UCC, dating to 1835 as a bonded warehouse, and was sold by the Nicholson family of wine merchants Woodford Bourne to a consortium abut 30 years ago.

That consortium comprising Con Smith, Vincent O’Farrell (who worked with Robin Power), and builder Jim Sullivan, sold it including the night venue Crazy Horse for a then-Cork city bar price record of £2.75 million (€3.5m) in April 1998.

Over the next quarter century Rearden’s consolidated its reputation when run as a venue, sports bar, live music and entertainment complex by the Kenneally/Montgomery partnership, initially financially aided by the recently deceased Eddie Kenneally, who died in 2023.

Its partners also invested in a significant student accommodation development at Victoria Cross’s old sawmills, and later developed the Oliver Plunkett at the corner of Oliver Plunkett Street and Caroline Street.

Reardens was taken over by Margaret Kennelly in a significant restructuring in 2019, reportedly refinanced by ptsb to buy out her ex-husband Paul Montgomery’s interest.

Initial reports had suggested a possible value as high as €30 million for the co-owned bars: sources in the bar sales trade suggest that seemed very aspirational and that an eventual value could be closer to €20/25 million for the businesses. However, one other knowledgeable source predicted that the very advanced deal would top €30m and include a work out of several years for main owner Margaret Kennelly. 

Reardens  and its bar, Cabaret Club, Secret Garden and Hidden Attic are clearly the larger asset with traditional strong turnover, in an historic building on Cork’s main nighttime strip, ‘The Wash,’ while the Oliver Plunkett if included in the deal as is reported could be worth c €4m of any final combined sale outcome.

While Attestor may be interested in taking over the lease on the adjacent Chambers,  currently operated by Reardens team, it isn't being acquired, and associated with another group/Clarendon, while also immediately adjacent to these two is the more recently established Dwyers.

Those in the licensed trade, business and property sectors will watch with interest to see how the Rearden’s/Oliver Plunkett sale progresses, and at what sort of sum if it does close out: will it reach, or even sail past the €25m figure paid last year by Louis Fitzgerald for Cork city’s historic ‘grande dame’ Imperial Hotel?

Other sales in the licensed trade include Soho on Grand Parade, now trading as Seventy Seven, said to have cost as much as €5m once reopened, while the suburban Rendezvous sold last year for c €2 million.

Others remaining on the Cork market include Electric on the South Mall, seeking €2.5m since September of last year; the Wine Vault, seeking €1.4 million when offered in autumn ’23; Bull McCabe’s seeking  seeking €650,000 and likely to be bought for other uses, and Cubin’s nightclub, next to Rearden’s, spanning 24,000 sq ft over two levels at up to €3.7m and also likely to find a non-licensed use, with education/arts use previously shown, according to sources.