Warren Barclay: New owner of Cardona Hotel discusses purchase of iconic hotel

The new owners of the Cardrona Hotel jumped on the investment to keep it in Kiwi hands.

Central Otago's 162-year-old heritage-listed hotel and restaurant has sold, after being on the market since July.

Wanaka local, Warren Barclay, will run the business - and says the new owners are high net worth Kiwis and good sorts who see potential.

He says business is solid and we don't want to do anything that changes that. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Morning, Mike.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Is it the idea that came out of the sale
or had you guys always had your eye on it?
Should something you know, come to the market.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
No, it really came from the market. It was an
im went out from cad Thornton, the current owner, and
it's just caught for guy's imagination really, so there was
no thought previously, no you know, line up to to
get the hotel. It was just an opportunity that, yeah,

(00:30):
came came from from Caid Thornton's putting the sale sale
sign up.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
What sort of consortium is it? How many how many locals?
Who's a good bugger? Who's a pain? I mean, how'd
you put it all together?

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Now, there's two guys Vegas want to remain low key, Mike, so,
but there are a couple of high net worth individuals
are Kiwi's and so they approached me to become the
publican and to front everything and that's what I'm doing.
So but yeah, they are good buggers.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
How much is it business? How much of it is altruism,
local ownership, keep it in the community, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I think it's probably both might to be honest, it's altruistic.
They wanted to definitely keep it in Kiwi hand. That
that was probably the motivation, and then beyond that was
that it's a it's a pretty good investment. It's got
a great trade in history, and so those two things
combined were really the motivation.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
What's the potential you reckon? Do you see upside?

Speaker 1 (01:31):
You know, I do. It's but with that upside comes
just a modicum of caution, just we don't want to
change a lot. We don't want anything like that. It's
a it's got a good trade in history, as I said,
and it's as a going concern, it's you know, exactly
what what you want. The business is solid and that's

(01:54):
what we want to do. We don't want to do
anything that changes that. There's just Kiwis and national visitors
all the time, every day, and that's what we want
to keep.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
You're not going to tell me the price, obviously, but
we all had a guess when it came to the market,
and I'm assuming you guys sort of did as well.
Was your guess right?

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Ish? Yeah? I think so. It's just you know, they
considered it, put in an offer and worked through with
Kaid and came to a settlement which was fear, I
think to both parties.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
I can hear in the background the birds. You're in
the garden of the hotel. Does it feel pretty good?

Speaker 1 (02:32):
It feels pretty good, Mike yep. And that looks pretty
good as well. For more from The Mike Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
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