With the sale of six resorts, a private equity firm seeks to capitalise on the post-Covid trend for UK domestic getaways.
As its private equity owners look to capitalise on the trend for domestic getaways sparked by the Covid pandemic, Centre Parcs’ UK and Irish business is being put up for sale with a price tag of up to £5bn, treble the amount it was purchased for in 2015.
The proposed sale comes after the company, whose five resorts in the UK and one in Ireland are renowned for their kid-friendly activities, spas, and indoor pools with tropical themes as well as their somewhat exorbitant prices, returned to profitability after being forced to close locations due to pandemic limitations.
Deals more than quadrupled to £503m in the year to 21 April 2022, helping lift benefits to £66m, from a deficiency of a £157m the earlier year as guests searched out occasions up close and personal in the midst of progressing worldwide travel disturbance. The gathering had wanted to fabricate another site in Worth Timberland, West Sussex, however took out recently after an objection from untamed life campaigners.
A potential deal comes as confidential value haspiled into the UK’s homegrown occasion market in the midst of expectations for development provoked by the fall in the worth of the pound, the cost for many everyday items emergency, ecological worries and more premium in open air pursuits after a shift among Britons towards breaks in the UK incited by pandemic travel limitations.
Bourne Recreation, which incorporates procession park administrator Safe house Occasions, was purchased by the confidential value bunch Blackstone for about £3bn in January 2021. That very year CVC Capital Accomplices purchased the occasion park administrator Away Retreats for £250m and afterward purchased up Aria Resorts and Coppergreen Relaxation to join with it.
The Financial Times, which broke the news of the sale, claims that Brookfield Property Partners’ advisors have been in contact with potential Centre Parcs buyers over the past week. Other private equity groups are reportedly among the potential contenders.
The first Centre Parcs location in the UK opened in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, in 1987. A second location opened in Elveden Forest, Suffolk, in 1989.
The group’s origins, however, date back to 1967, when Piet Derksen, a Dutch businessman, founded Sporthuis Centrum, a vacation resort at De Lommerbergen that offered tent-based lodging.
Before the UK branch of the company was separated from the European division in 2001, the company progressively transitioned from canvas to lodges and changed its name to Centre Parcs. Under distinct ownership, Centre Parcs is still in business in Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Belgium.
After purchasing Centre Parcs’ UK-based component from Blackstone for around £2.4 billion in 2015, Brookfield would make a sizeable profit if the hoped-for price is met.
The broader economic outlook and worries about rising interest rates, however, have since hurt property-based transactions.
When Centre Parcs stated that its UK locations would close for 24 hours to commemorate the Queen’s burial and that any guests who were in the middle of stays would have to leave the resorts overnight, the announcement caused a stir last September.
The company swiftly changed its position, stating that it had “examined our position regarding the very tiny number of passengers who are not due to depart… Instead of forcing them to leave and come back, we will let them stay in our villages.
