Читать книгу Find. Build. Sell. - Stephen J. Hunt - Страница 20

It was 2015. I was 42. I was living in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales with my wife and children. By sheer good luck (and some good timing), I found myself with $400 000 from the lucrative sale of a Sydney residence. I had already had a few good wins under my belt from residential property (I once owned a property for six weeks and made 18 per cent on the sale), so I was feeling on top of the world and, to put it quite bluntly, thought my shit didn't stink.

As it happens, my local bar — The Rutherford, two hours north of Sydney — was up for sale. I'd spent many a night in this bar and thought, ‘Maybe this is the business opportunity I've been looking for?' It had a good vibe, a terrific location, minimal competition and great community support. After a few more days of mulling it over (and, it must be said, a few more drinks in that bar), I thought, ‘Yep! This is a winner. I'm going to buy this bar!'

The Rutherford Hotel. The bar that set the wheels in motion.

I'd been managing pubs for 20 years as a CEO and general manager, but I'd never sought investors to assist with the funding of them. This would be an entirely different endeavour. But my time was here. This was a wonderful opportunity and I knew I could make it a success.

The next day, I contacted the hotel broker who was selling the pub.

‘How much are you asking for The Rutherford on the New England Highway?' I asked.

‘$4.2 million,' he said.

‘Sounds reasonable,' I said, privately thinking I had no hope in hell of finding that much money, but I wanted to give it a red-hot crack so I went to my accountant, told her about the deal and to my surprise and delight, she said, ‘Count me in. I'll invest $400 000 right now'. Well, that was a good start, I thought.

With the help of a few other friends, I found another $200 000, so with my $400 000 from the property sale and my accountant's $400 000 contribution, I now had $1 million dollars to kick start my venture.

I went to the bank and told them what I needed to buy this bar. The first one said ‘no', and so did the second and third. The fourth one, however, said ‘yes' to my request, so now I had a total of $3.73 million. Brilliant. It was a struggle to get that bank to have faith in me, but having run many pubs in the past, they could see I knew what I was doing.

Now I just needed to raise $1 million to complete the purchase. ‘Piece of cake', I thought.