Potential buyers circle Pontins in droves
Wednesday, 18 Nov, 2010
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Some 40 parties have registered an interest in buying holiday park operator Pontins, which went into administration last week.
A spokeswoman for the operator said administrators KPMG were currently sifting through all the expressions of interest and would spend at least until Christmas studying each offer.
Pontins, which employs around 850 staff across five parks in Somerset, Sussex, Suffolk, Wales and Merseyside, had the rug pulled from under it at the back end of last week when former Pontins chief Graham Parr, who led the Ocean Parcs consortium which bought the operator in 2007, declared that the bank was pulling its credit line.
For now it is business as usual, with bookings still being taken and, according to the operator’s spokeswoman, only one cancellation.
She added: “People going to the parks will not see anything different. Everyone should be reassured that it is business as usual and agents should beep taking bookings for the parks.”
In the last two years, industry commentators have remarked on how Pontins, a traditional British operator established back in 1946, has failed to capitalise on the staycation boom as much as its rivals Butlins and Haven Holidays.
Back in February 2009 it announced it would be pouring £50m into sprucing up its holiday centres and doubling its workforce in anticipation of the recessionary preference for holidaying in the UK.
But since then the company has been forced to close its Blackpool site.
But Pontins’ Parr has always insisted the company is healthy.
He says it is simply an issue of the operator’s bank Santander refusing to continue its rolling credit facility of £600,000 because the business’ core facilities had not been restructed how it would have liked.
by Dinah Hatch
Dinah
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