Talacre Beach holiday park sites sold
NORTH Wales holiday parks operator Talacre Beach Leisure has sold off three of the company’s six holiday park businesses to the Darwin Leisure Property Fund.
Founder James G McAllister has sold the Talacre, Seaview and New Pines Caravan Parks to the £100m Darwin Leisure Property Fund for an undisclosed sum.
He has also sold the Brynteg site at Gwynedd to his son, James D McAllister but is retaining the company’s flagship Plas Coch Park at Llanedwen on the Isle of Angelsey. Meanwhile, The Tan Rallt park at Conwy has been sold to Pario Leisure Group.
McAllister Sr said: “After so many successful years I felt it was time to put my energies into one park and my son, James D McAllister, will now have the opportunity to take sole responsibility for Brynteg.
“The board and I are working alongside the new owners, themselves already successful holiday park owners, to ensure a smooth handover so that our staff and owners on the parks can be safe in the knowledge that the future is as constant and bright as ever.”
Darwin Property Investment Management’s chief executive Anthony Esse said: “We have purchased these parks because they are an excellent strategic fit for our long-term plans. Caravan parks are excellent businesses for a diligent long-term investor to invest in and we are very grateful for the support we have had from some of the very largest pension funds in both the private and public sector.”
The most recent filed accounts for Talacre Beach’s Caravan Sales division show a pre-tax profit of £1.1m on sales of £31.4m in the year to January 31, 2010.
Talacre Beach Leisure Group was advised on the sales by the Liverpool office of accountancy firm Grant Thornton and law firm Hill Dickinson.
The head of Grant Thornton’s Liverpool office, Neil Sturmey, said the deal was “indicative of the slowly improving transactional market we are seeing, but is very much stimulated in this case by the real quality of these particular holiday parks”.
“The North Wales leisure sector is a strong one and deals like this reflect the fact that good businesses always attract buyers, regardless of uncertainty in the wider market.”
