The owner of holiday companies Haven and Butlins is reported to be readying a bid for Newcastle-based holiday park firm Parkdean Resorts.
It has been widely reported that Parkdean Resorts has been put up for sale by Canadian investment group Onex, which bought the firm for £1.35bn in 2016.
Now reports have emerged that Bourne Leisure - which combines Haven holiday parks, Butlins and Warner Leisure hotels - is working with its American private equity owners Blackstone on a bid for Parkdean Resorts.
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If successful, that would see Parkdean’s estate of 66 holiday parks joining with Haven’s 37 sites to create one of the largest holiday firms in the country. It has been reported that Blackstone and Bourne Leisure see a good fit between the two companies.
Parkdean Resorts, which has around 750 employees at its Newcastle based, was formed in 2015 by the merger of Parkdean Holidays and Park Resorts, selling to Onex a year later. Its sites in the North East include Sandy Bay, near Newbiggin-by-the-Sea and Whitley Bay Holiday Park in the North East.
The potential sale talks come at a time of investment within the Parkdean Resorts portfolio, which has parks in coastal locations as well as areas of natural beauty and has benefitted from a surge in demand for holidays in the UK.
At the end of last year Parkdean published research into the impact of Covid-19 on the travel and tourism industry which claimed that staycations in the UK was to rise.
The survey found that the majority of people (53%) questioned intend to holiday in the UK in 2022, compared to 25% who intend to holiday in Europe and 6% in the USA. Parkdean has created hundreds of new jobs, partly through the Government’s Kickstarter scheme, to meet growing demand.
Parkdean Resorts’ chief customer officer Catherine Lynn said: “Demand has increased, and the UK’s appetite for staycations remained high throughout 2021, even as international travel opened up again. Bookings were strong throughout September and October, and we’re looking forward to another busy year in 2022.”
Parkdean Resorts and Blackstone have been approached for comment. Bourne Leisure has declined to comment.
