Center Parcs set to be sold following £2.4b Canadian bid

Center Parcs, the UK holiday park business, is on target to be sold to Canadian investment business Brookfield following its offer of £2.4b for the company.

US private equity giant Blackstone, which has owned Center Parcs for the past 10 years, is understood to be in exclusive talks with Brookfield over the sale, reported The Telegraph.

Other interested parties are believed to have fallen by the wayside, including private equity firms KSL Capital Partners and CVC, which had tabled joint bids with Singapore's sovereign wealth fund and Canadian pension fund CPP respectively.

Dalian Wanda and Fosun, two Chinese conglomerates that had previously indicated plans to bid, walked away earlier this year.

A deal with Brookfield could be announced this week.

Center Parcs was set up in 1967 by Dutch entrepreneur Piet Derksen, who opened sites across the continent and launched into the UK in 1987. The company was bought by brewer Scottish & Newcastle two years later, and sold again in 2001, when the European parks and UK business were split.

The UK parks were bought by venture capitalist Deutsche Bank Capital Partners, which floated the operating business on the Alternative Investment Market in 2003 and sold the property to Hugh Osmond's Sun Capital Partners.

The property and operating businesses were reunited in 2006 by Blackstone, which bought them for £265m and £825m.

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