The global investment giant KKR and the owner of Pinewood Studios have joined the race to snap up Park Holidays, one of Britain’s biggest staycation providers.
Sky News has learnt that New York-listed KKR is exploring a takeover of Park Holidays through one of its infrastructure-driven funds.
It is up against rival suitors including Aermont, the majority-owner of Pinewood, and Park Holidays’ former owner, ICG.
The auction has been initiated just four years after ICG offloaded the company for £950m to Sun Communities, a US-listed real estate investment trust.
Park Holidays trades from more than 50 locations across the UK, including Dawlish in Devon, Felixstowe in Suffolk and Birchington in Kent.
ICG bought Park Holidays for £362m in 2017, and expanded the business significantly during its four-year ownership period.
Other possible suitors for the business are said to include Centerbridge Partners, which last year held talks about providing hundreds of millions of pounds to Parkdean Resorts, another big player in the industry.
Bankers at Lazard are overseeing the process, which is expected to crystallise a significant loss for the current owner.
In addition to the roughly £950m paid by Sun Communities in 2021, it subsequently bought back the freeholds to some of the company’s sites.
Industry sources have speculated that its total outlay on Park Holidays may have been as much as £1.2bn-£1.3bn, with bids expected to value the company at between £700m and £800m.
A deal is expected to be agreed later in the spring.
Declining consumer confidence has been a factor in a number of privately held leisure industry players performing weakly in the last 12 months, with the outlook becoming gloomier since the outbreak of the war in Iran.
However, Sky News revealed last week that Center Parcs UK was closing in on a recapitalisation valuing it at £4.6bn, with US-based Stepstone and an Australian pension fund participating in the deal.
KKR and Aermont declined to comment.
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