AFL boss sells Cardiff McDonald’s for $5.53m, and new owner pays cash

A high-profile AFL boss and Sydney businessman has sold off Cardiff’s McDonald’s restaurant and the new buyer has paid up the whopping price in cash.

Adrian Fonesca, deputy chairman of the Giants AFL team, offloaded the property at auction in Sydney on March 26.

The fast food restaurant, which opened in December, sold for $5.53 million to a cash buyer from Melbourne.

Burgess Rawson listing agent Yosh Mednis said the sale included a new 20-year McDonald’s ground lease earning $180,000 per year.

Mr Fonseca bought the 3000 square metre-plus site at 43 Pendlebury Road in Cardiff for $3.1 million in December 2021.

The purchase was a joint venture with Isaac Property Development’s Ben and Jono Isaac who developed McDonald’s on the site along with a childcare centre operated by Mr Fonseca’s Oxanda Education which has early learning centres across NSW.

The auction started at $4.2 million and drew 30 bids.

“It were multiple parties in the running and it was a very hotly contested auction because McDonald’s investments are the most highly sought after in the investment market,” Mr Mendis said.

“It is the definition of a AAA investment.

“We had people in Queensland, NSW and South Australia all bidding.”

It marked the second sale of a McDonald’s restaurant for Mr Fonesca and Ben and Jono Isaac who sold another in Unanderra, near Wollongong, on a 3.51 per cent yield in August for $5.7 million.

It’s not the only high-priced transaction Mr Fonseca has been involved with in the past 12 months.

In August, the cashed-up AFL boss paid more than $4 million over the guide when he splashed $15.58 million on a mansion in the affluent Sydney suburb of Bellevue Hill.

Earlier this month, it was reported he paid around $21 million for a Double Bay shopping arcade.

Mr Fonesca also sold an equestrian estate in Terrey Hills for a record-breaking $14.1 million last year.