Center Parcs puts up all six sites across the UK for sale

Outdoors resort company Center Parcs is being put up for sale - with owners seeking a price of between £4 billion and £5 billion.

According to the Financial Times, Canadian private equity group Brookfield Property Partners, which owns the holiday villages, is hoping to sell up its five sites after it bought the company for £2.4 billion in 2015.

Prior to that sale, the company was owned by the private equity company Blackstone, which bought the business in 2006 for just over £1 billion.

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The company runs six sites in all; Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, Elvedon Forest in Suffolk, Longleat Forest in Wiltshire, Whinfell Forest in Cumbria, Woburn Forest in Bedfordshire, and Longford Forest in County Longford, Ireland, the most recent to open in 2019.

The village at Sherwood Forest was the first to open outside mainland Europe in 1987, with the outdoors concept proving a huge hit, with high rates of occupancy all year round, taking in its swimming complexes and woodland trails.

The company suffered losses of £110 million due to the pandemic, but has seen fortunes turn around since, with the increased interest in ‘staycations’, with profits returning to £172 million last year.

Plans to open a seventh site in Crawley, near to Gatwick Airport, were scrapped in February this year, following reviews of its environmental impact.

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