27 million quid, you say? The owners of the Black Lion pub in central London will drink to that.
It’s been but a short a few years since properties were selling for crazy prices in these parts, but we certainly never heard of an Irish pub selling for anything like the price one pub in central London sold for earlier today.
According to the Evening Standard, the Black Lion pub in Bayswater, which has been a part of London for three centuries, was bought for a cool £27 million by an unidentified US developer who is intent on turning the building into a block of luxury flats.
Pic via Google Street View
The pub is located near the Queensway area of West London, which is due for a £500 million revamp, and is believed to be one of several properties being snapped up by that particular investor in the area.
The Spirit Pub group, who announced the sale on the Stock Exchange earlier today, confirmed that they will continue to run the pub for an agreed period and with good reason; it made profits of approximately £700,000 last year.
Although it sounds astronomical, the £27 million sum paid for The Black Lion falls a fair way short of the £32 million paid for the City Pride pub in Canary Wharf in 2008, which remains the highest price ever paid for a pub in the English capital.
In case the developer in question is interested in boozers in Ireland, there’s a lovely shack around the corner from JOE Towers where we sometimes go for post-work cans on sunny evenings and we’re willing to negotiate on the price.
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