South Lakeland Group (United Kingdom) - Nov 2007

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01 November 2007

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LGV Capital has generated 2.2x its investment from the sale of holiday park operator South Lakeland Group to White Ocean Leisure for £125m. The exit achieved an IRR of 72% over LGV’s 18-month holding period. After receiving several independent approaches for the business, LGV appointed Deloitte to run a limited auction process. Over the course of LGV’s involvement, profits rose by approximately 10% to reach £10m on a turnover of around £30m and the company paid down just under 10% of its debt. LGV backed a £3m investment programme to upgrade the quality of the parks’ accommodation and facilities. This included building new timber lodge developments, new internet café facilities, a new indoor swimming pool, a new children’s play area, new jetties, revamped tennis courts and better facilities for disabled guests. Bill Priestley and Adrian Johnson led the deal for LGV.

Previous funding

LGV backed the management buyout of South Lakeland Caravans in June 2006 acquiring a majority stake in the business for an undisclosed sum (3 July 2006, page 28). Anglo-Irish Bank provided debt on the deal. South Lakeland operates nine timber lodge and caravan holiday parks situated in the Lake District and Morecambe Bay region, two of which were named in the best 100 parks in the UK. Headquartered in Lancaster, South Lakeland has a staff of 200.