UK car park firm sold in €806m deal

Britrish car park operator NCP was today poised to change hands for the second time in three years in a deal worth £555m (€806m).

The company, which manages more than 900 car parks and has been moving into areas such as wheel clamping and vehicle removal services, is to be bought by private equity firm 3i.

NCP has been in business for more than 70 years and has built up a portfolio that includes car parks at 10 of the UK’s busiest airports, including Heathrow and Birmingham International.

Private equity group Cinven bought the business for £820m (€1.1bn) in May 2002 and then completed a sale and leaseback of more than 100 car parks – a deal that raised £600m (€871m).

Since then, a major overhaul has seen it expand from being just an off-street parking business into one that provides a range of services for local authorities.

It issues penalty notices for London’s Congestion Charge and took over operation of 25 London Underground station car parks in November 2002.

In total, it operates or manages 230,000 parking spaces and handles more than 60 million customer transactions a year.

3i is expected to continue this expansion into new areas following the sale, which is set to go through in the next couple of weeks.

NCP chief executive Bob Macnaughton said: “NCP has been transformed dramatically in the past three years and we are now providing a much broader range of services to both individuals and public sector customers.”