Center Parcs up for sale with an expected €5bn price tag

Center Parcs in Longford first opened in 2019. File Picture: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

Holiday resort company Center Parcs has been put up for sale by its owner, Canadian investment firm Brookfield, in a deal that could fetch between £4bn and £5bn (€5.74bn).

Center Parcs operates six locations across the UK and Ireland. The company’s one resort in Ireland is located in Longford Forest.

If the sale is to go ahead, it would represent one of the largest UK real estate deals so far this year. 

The details of the proposed sale were first reported in the Financial Times which spoke to people familiar with the deal.

According to the report, Brookfield has been examining an exit from the investment in recent months and has now appointed investment bankers to handle the sale.

The investment bankers have been seeking out potential buyers over the past week including other private equity companies.

Brookfield acquired Center Parcs in 2015 from asset management firm Blackstone for £2.4bn (€2.75bn). Since then, Brookfield has invested in upgrading its facilities and amenities and building 250 new lodges.

Should the sale go ahead, Brookfield could see a really strong return on investment.

The firm claims on their website that Center Parcs serves two million guests per year and has a 98% occupancy rate.

The planned sale will also come with a reported £2bn in existing debt.

Longford resort

In the year to April 2022, Center Parcs Ireland reported revenue of €57.8m following a recovery from covid enforced lockdowns.

The surge in revenues meant a pre-tax profit of €8.1m following a pre-tax loss of €18.2m the year prior. It was also the first year the company reported a profit in Ireland.

The Longford resort first opened to the public in July 2019. As of 2022, it employed over a thousand people.

In 2022, the entire Center Parcs group recorded a profit of £66m in the year to April 2022 with sales quadrupling to £503m.

The Irish Examiner reached out to Brookfield for comment but the company declined.

Brookfield says it manages $825bn (€758bn) in assets around the world.

In recent years, private equity firms have been piling money into the UK’s domestic holiday sector amid hopes for growth as the value of the pound dropped as well as the impact of the cost of living crisis.

The growing trend for domestic breaks was really kick-started by the pandemic as travel abroad was largely restricted.

Other private equity companies have already taken steps to buy into the market. In January 2021, Blackstone paid about £3bn for Bourne Leisure, which includes Haven Holidays, the caravan park operator.

The same year CVC Capital Partners bought holiday park operator Away Resorts for £250m and then bought up Aria Resorts and Coppergreen Leisure to combine with it.

Additional reporting from the Guardian.