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The origins of ALH go back to 1974 when the Bruce Mathieson Group, run by Bruce Mathieson and his family, entered the hotel industry. By 2000, the Bruce Mathieson Group was operating 35 pubs, in Victoria.
A chance meeting between Bruce Mathieson and Woolworths’ CEO Roger Corbett in 2000 led to a joint venture in Queensland called MGW Hotels. The aim of MGW was to buy and operate hotels in Queensland. This gave Woolworths an entry to the retail market, as well as on-premise activities. MGW was highly successful and its portfolio grew to 30 Hotels in less than 4 years. The joint venture vehicle used by Woolworths Limited and the Mathieson family was Bruandwo Pty Ltd.
ALH was established as a business unit of CUB in the mid 1990's and undertook various acquisitions including Ballarat Brewing Company (1997), Austotel Group (1998), Palmgold Group (1999) and Eureka Group (1998) as well as other individual acquisitions. By 2003 ALH operated 131 Hotels, plus in Queensland 109 detached bottle shops. Fosters Group floated the Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group on the Australian share market in November 2003. In late 2004 Bruandwo mounted a successful takeover of Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group and the group was delisted.
In 2005 Bruandwo changed its name to ALH Group Pty Ltd and the operations of Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group, MGW Hotels and the Hotel interests of the Mathieson family were merged into the ALH Group.
In early 2006, ALH Group acquired the Taverner Hotel Group (consisting of 33 Hotels). ALH Group has also acquired a number of individual hotels and now owns and operates over 270 Venues across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. |
