Brookfield exploring partial sale of Center Parcs to investors

(Sharecast News) - Brookfield Property Partners, the owner of the holiday resort operator Center Parcs UK & Ireland, is in preliminary talks with some of its fund investors regarding the sale of a stake in the chain, it emerged on Friday. The discussions came amidst a faltering £5bn auction, according to Sky News.

Sky said that the Canadian real estate giant, which acquired the Center Parcs operations in Britain in 2015, was now in talks with several of the limited partners in its funds about a possible transaction.

However, the identities of the partners and the likelihood of an agreement being finalised remained uncertain.

Amid the ongoing discussions, an outright sale of Center Parcs UK and Ireland remained on the table.

During the summer, multiple potential bidders, including CVC Capital Partners, KSL Capital Partners, and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, apparently expressed an interest.

However, Sky News said they failed to match Brookfield's valuation expectations, initially anticipating a sale value of up to £5bn.

Sky quoted an inside source mentioning that Brookfield was considering options such as refinancing, recapitalisation, and partial sales.

Center Parcs operates six resort sites across the UK and Ireland and floated on London's junior AIM market in 2003 before shifting to the main market in 2005.

By 2006, the private equity firm Blackstone acquired it before Brookfield's £2.4bn purchase in 2015.

Brookfield had yet to respond to the current stake sale discussions by lunchtime on Friday.

The discussions do not involve Center Parcs Europe, which was separated from the British and Irish operations under Blackstone ownership.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.