Holiday park giant Parkdean lines up £250m Centerbridge funding

Britain's biggest holiday parks operator is lining up an American investment firm to provide hundreds of millions of pounds of funding firepower as it eyes opportunities to consolidate the market.

Sky News has learnt that Centerbridge Partners, which has more than $50bn in assets under management, is in talks to inject roughly £250m into Parkdean Resorts. The funding, which would be provided as debt, has yet to be finalised, with sources close to Parkdean saying on Friday that other parties remained interested in leading the deal.

Money blog: UK airport ranked worst for fourth year in a row Parkdean operates 65 sites across the UK, and during the summer peak trading period employs approximately 8,000 people. The company has been owned by Canada's Onex Corporation since 2016, although there have been persistent questions about how much of the £1.35bn purchase price it can expect to recoup.

Industry sources believe that is a particularly pertinent issue amid growing financial pressures on British consumers. Onex has also ploughed further funding into Parkdean since the original deal, notably in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Sources said that if successfully concluded, Centerbridge would join Parkdean's capital structure alongside Ares Management Corporation, its existing senior lender. The new financing would be used to strengthen Parkdean's balance sheet, and provide headroom to fund growth by upgrading some of its existing parks.

Consolidation of the market through acquisitions, given the fragmented nature of the sector's ownership, is also said to be on the company's agenda. A spokesperson for the company said: "Parkdean Resorts is running a process to strengthen the balance sheet, and to provide firepower for continued growth and sector consolidation.

"We've had record trading over the summer peak, with 98% occupancy, and growth in both revenue and [earnings]." The capital-raising process is being run by bankers at Rothschild. Parkdean is run by Steve Richards, the veteran leisure industry executive.

Centerbridge declined to comment..