Center Parcs owner looking to speed up sale of UK resorts chain

The owner of Center Parcs is said to be rushing to complete a sale after it was revealed the UK holiday resorts chain had passed the deadline for its final bid without any formal offers being made.

The Financial Times reported three remaining bidders, private equity groups Antin Infrastructure Partners and KSL Capital Partners (who bought the parent company of Pig hotels in April 2022) and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, did not make formal offers, despite being expected to have submitted second-round bids by the end of last month.

The paper added advisers to Brookfield, the Canadian private equity group that put the resort up for sale with a price tag of almost £5b this May, are in the process of building a consortium of bidders to spread the cost of the deal, dubbed ‘Project Redwood’.

Brookfield first bought the business in 2015 from US private equity firm Blackstone for £2.4b.

It comes after Center Parcs announced it continues to search for a suitable site for a holiday village in the south-east of England last month, despite previous plans being scrapped.

The holiday parks also reported a record year of trading, with revenue up 18% over the 12 months to 20 April 2023.

Center Parcs was founded in 1968 in the Netherlands and runs five UK sites: Whinfell Forest in the Lake District, Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, Longleat Forest in Wiltshire, Elveden Forest in Suffolk, and Woburn Forest in Bedfordshire. It also has a resort near Ballymahon in Ireland.

Brookfield has been contacted for comment.