UK holiday parks advised to close: Portfolios affected

Bridge Leisure
Phoenix Equity Partners invested in Bridge Leisure in 2015 in a deal that valued the company at around £36m, according to press reports. The firm drew equity from its 2010 fund, which is now fully deployed, with the majority of its assets realised. It sold holiday and cruises provider Riviera Travel to Silverfleet in 2017.

Phoenix's initial investment went towards the acquisition of the Silver Sands Holiday Park. Bridge Leisure now owns nine holiday parks across the UK and manages three of those directly. It also operates a holiday park management consultancy business dedicated to other holiday park owners.

The company has stopped taking future holiday bookings until 1 June 2020 and is taking steps to rearrange all current bookings.

Coppergreen Developments
In 2016, BGF invested £11m in Coppergreen as part of a £25m funding package to support the acquisition of Piperdam Golf and Leisure Resort near Dundee, along with 350 acres of adjoining land. HSBC provided the remaining £14m by way of a debt facility in the original deal.

The firm invested a further £10m in 2018, with HSBC providing a £15.3m debt package to fund the acquisition of Kenwick Park Estate and Clumber Park.

Since BGF's initial investment, Coppergeen has built additional lodges at its existing sites – Piperdam and Woodland Lakes – and added a pool, gym, shop, cafe, new reception and additional leisure facilities to the Woodland Lakes site.

Coppergreen has closed its sites as per the government guidance.

Park Holidays UK
Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) acquired Park Holidays UK from Caledonia Investments for an enterprise value of £362m in 2016. At the time, the firm was investing from its €843m ICG Recovery Fund, which closed on March 2010.

The company most recently bought Carlton Meres Country Park in 2017 for £13m. It now operates 31 holiday parks in the south of the UK and has cancelled all bookings between 23 March 2020 and 16 April 2020.

Parkdean Resorts UK
In 2016, Canada-based private equity firm Onex acquired Parkdean Resorts UK from Epiris and Alchemy Partners for £1.35bn. The acquirer was said to invest $750m in equity in the company at the time of the deal. In February 2017, Ardian and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board co-invested.

The company is cancelling all bookings until 1 May 2020 and will reopen the park then. The company has also committed to paying the entirety of all its employees' wages and not making any redundancies, according to its website.

Forest Holidays
Phoenix Private Equity acquired Forest Holidays from LDC in 2017 for an estimated deal value of £100m. Phoenix drew capital from its 2016 fund, which held a final close on £415m in July 2017. The fund has made one realisation to date: the sale of holiday accommodation booking company Travel Chapter to ECI Partners in January 2019.

The company has closed all of its 11 locations from 23 March 2020 to 26 April 2020.

Away Resorts
Bregal Freshstream acquired Away Resorts from LDC in May 2019. Unquote understands the transaction valued the company at more than £100m. The deal is the 10th made by Bregal Freshstream's 2015-vintage €600m maiden fund, which writes equity cheques of €30-100m. According to Unquote sister publication Debtwire, the deal was backed with a £54m unitranche and £30m capex facility from Permira Debt Management.

The company will not accept new bookings until the 3 July 2020, and one of its locations, catered holiday park Mill Rythe, will be closed between 23 March and 19 April. All of the locations' bars, restaurants and central facilities have been closed since 20 March 2020.

Lakeshore Leisure Group
In October 2019, Kings Park Capital acquired two holiday parks, Otter Falls Holiday Park and Clawford Lakes. The firm drew equity from its second fund. At the time of the acquisition, the firm stated it would use a buy-and-build strategy for the asset. The company most recently acquired Lakeview Manor in a deal estimated to value it at £1.8m.

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• Topics
• Investments
• UK / Ireland
• Consumer
• United Kingdom
• Phoenix Equity Partners
• Intermediate Capital Group
• Ardian (formerly Axa PE)
• BGF (Business Growth Fund)
• Bregal Capital
• coronavirus