RJD and Yorkshire Bank back holiday park buy-in

THE former management of Lancashire and Cumbria holiday parks group Southlakeland Parks has bought in to a leisure business in Scotland.

Graham Hodgson and Bev Dixon have acquired Dunham Leisure which operates two five-star holiday parks in south east Scotland – Thurston Manor, a 175-acre park 30 miles from Edinburgh and Pease Bay close by.

The couple, who plan to make further acquisitions, have bought the business from leisure and property entreprenuer Dennis Dunham with private equity backing from London-based RJD Partners and £8.5m in debt facilities from the Yorkshire bank’s corporate and structured finance team.

The value of the investment by RJD, which has also put money into Manchester-based Character World, has not been disclosed.

Graham Hodgson, who will take over as chief executive, and Bev Dixon, who becomes the operations director, previously led the LGV Capital-backed buyout of Southlakeland Parks in 2006. The business, which operates nine parks, was sold to private investors for £125m in December 2007.

The management team will be joined by Andrew Wall as finance director who previously led KPMG’s corporate finance team in the Midlands for eight years and was most recently a partner with HMT Corporate Finance.
 
The new team will take over from Andrew and Simon Dunham whose father Dennis, the main shareholder, founded the business in 1991 with the acquisition of Thurston Manor.
 
Guy Taylor, director with Yorkshire Bank Corporate & Structured Finance in Manchester led the deal with associate director Jon Hall.
 
Mr Taylor said: “We’re backing a very experienced and highly regarded management team with the backing of a strong private equity house in RJD Partners. The buy and build strategy the team have in place will take advantage of good opportunities in this highly fragmented sector. We look forward to helping RJD and management build the group.”
 
RJD Partners’ investment director Frank Bulman said: “The Dunham parks are well established but nevertheless offer significant development potential and represent an excellent platform for further park acquisition opportunities.”