Park Holidays UK

Graphite acquired Park Holidays UK, the UK’s fourth largest holiday park operator, from its founders and introduced a new management team to drive revenues

Park Holidays UK operated holiday parks across the south of England. Caravan parks have a loyal and growing customer base which, combined with planning policies that restrict the development of new parks, results in a robust and resilient business model.

Graphite recruited an experienced buy-in management team to work together with one of Park Holidays’ founders. The new team had a strong track record for managing larger caravan park operators and other leisure businesses. This allowed them to make significant operational improvements at the existing parks and grow customer numbers substantially. Graphite also backed Park Holidays UK in acquiring six additional parks in Devon, bringing the total number of parks under management to 24.

Park Holidays UK

KEY BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENTS

Appointed a new management team and upgraded information and financial systems to professionalise the former entrepreneurial business

Acquired six holiday-maker focused caravan parks in Devon which expanded the geographical reach of the business

Developed the caravan hire business across all parks by implementing a centralised booking system, improving park facilities and increasing the number of hire pitches from 400 to 1,800

Improved pitch utilisation, reducing the number of vacant pitches by around 50%

Developed its food and beverage offering to increase customers' ancillary spend

6,000

Caravan Owners

BUSINESS EXIT

In November 2013 Park Holidays UK was sold to Caledonia Investments, generating a multiple of 2.3 times cost and an IRR of 14 per cent.