Bourne Leisure Holdings Limited is a British private company which owns a number of subsidiary undertakings operating in the leisure and holiday sectors in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
including
Haven Holidays
Haven Holidays is a chain of holiday parks in the United Kingdom. It operates self catering static caravan holiday parks with many also including touring and camping facilities. The company operates 41 sites in the UK in predominantly coastal ...
and
Warner Leisure Hotels
Warner Leisure Hotels is a hospitality company owning 14 country and coastal properties around the UK in North Wales, Somerset, Herefordshire, Berkshire, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Isle of Wight, Suffolk, Hampshire and Warwickshire. Since ...
.
Company structure
The main trading companies in the Bourne Leisure group in the UK are:
*
Haven Leisure Ltd who operate 37 family-orientated caravan holiday parks in England, Scotland and Wales.
* Bourne Holidays Ltd who operate 14 hotels across the
UK under the
Warner Leisure Hotels
Warner Leisure Hotels is a hospitality company owning 14 country and coastal properties around the UK in North Wales, Somerset, Herefordshire, Berkshire, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Isle of Wight, Suffolk, Hampshire and Warwickshire. Since ...
name, and which are exclusively for adults. Many of the Warner Leisure Hotels properties are
country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
hotels, including Alvaston Hall,
Bodelwyddan Castle
Bodelwyddan Castle ( cy, Castell Bodelwyddan), close to the village of Bodelwyddan, near Rhyl, Denbighshire in Wales, was built around 1460 by the Humphreys family of Anglesey as a manor house. It was associated with the Williams-Wynn family fo ...
,
Cricket St Thomas
Cricket St Thomas is a parish in Somerset, England, situated in a valley between Chard and Crewkerne within the South Somerset administrative district.
The A30 road passes nearby. The parish has a population of 50. It is noted for the historic ...
, Holme Lacey House,
Littlecote House
Littlecote House is a large Elizabethan country house and estate in the civil parishes of Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat, in the English county of Wiltshire, about northeast of the Berkshire town of Hungerford. The estate includes 34 hectares of hi ...
, Nidd Hall, and
Thoresby Hall
Thoresby Hall is a grade I listed 19th-century country house in Budby, Nottinghamshire, some 2 miles (4 km) north of Ollerton. It is one of four neighbouring country houses and estates in the Dukeries in north Nottinghamshire all occupied b ...
.
![bodelwyddan castle view2 arp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Bodelwyddan_castle_view2_arp.jpg)
The
Guernsey
Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency.
It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...
-based
fiduciary company, ''First Ovalap Ltd'', jointly owned by the Harris, Cook and Allen families, were the majority shareholders until the majority of the share were bought by the private equity company Blackstone.
History
In 1964 accountant
Peter Harris, with business partner David Allen, purchased Alberta caravan park in
Whitstable
Whitstable () is a town on the north coast of Kent adjoining the convergence of the Swale Estuary and the Greater Thames Estuary in southeastern England, north of Canterbury and west of Herne Bay. The 2011 Census reported a population of 32 ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. A few years after this acquisition John Cook joined with Harris and Allen, and in 1972 the three entrepreneurs floated the company, Leisure Caravan Parks, on the London stock exchange. The company was subsequently acquired by
Rank
Rank is the relative position, value, worth, complexity, power, importance, authority, level, etc. of a person or object within a ranking, such as:
Level or position in a hierarchical organization
* Academic rank
* Diplomatic rank
* Hierarchy
* H ...
in 1975 for £20m. Meanwhile, Harris, Cook and Allen started over again with a new set of parks which they then expanded in October 2000 by buying
The Rank Group
The Rank Group is a gambling company based in the United Kingdom. Rank was involved in the cinema and motion picture industry until 2006, and continues to use the Gongman logo originally used by the Rank Organisation's film distribution subsidi ...
’s holiday business. This purchase included the Haven caravan sites, three Butlins holiday camps, Oasis Holiday Village and Warner Leisure Hotels. The deal cost £700m and was part financed by
Legal & General
Legal & General Group plc, commonly known as Legal & General, is a British multinational financial services and asset management company headquartered in London, England. Its products and services include investment management, lifetime mortg ...
Ventures and
Candover. The business was able to buy out these two private equity firms a few years later.
Following this major expansion of the company some sites were subsequently sold as part of a rationalization of the business. In March 2001 seven parks were sold to Premier Dawn for £15m, and soon afterwards Cinque Ports bought nine parks for £28.7m. In May 2001 twelve Haven sites were sold to
Park Resorts Ltd, in a management buy-out in partnership with CBPE for £48m. In September 2001,
Center Parcs Center Parcs may refer to:
* Center Parcs UK and Ireland
Center Parcs UK and Ireland (formerly Center Parcs UK) is a short-break holiday company that operates six holiday villages in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, with each cover ...
acquired the Oasis Holiday Village, at
Whinfell Forest
Whinfell Forest is a small area of woodland in the parish of Brougham, Cumbria, south east of Penrith in Cumbria and just off the A66 road leading to Appleby-in-Westmorland. The forest is a short distance from the Lake District national park and ...
,
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...
.
In February 2004 LGV and Candover sold their 28% stake back to management in a deal that valued the firm at more than £1 billion. And in October 2004 Bourne sold a package of five sites to
Parkdean Holidays
Parkdean Resorts is a holiday park operator in the United Kingdom. It was formed in November 2015 through the merger of Parkdean Holidays and Park Resorts. As of 2022 it operates 66 holiday parks across England, Scotland, and Wales, and is the ...
for £42m. In November 2004 the company sold its European operation ''Haven Europe'' for £250m (now named
Siblu
Siblu (formerly Haven Europe) owns and operates 23 large family holiday parks in France and the Netherlands. Siblu's holiday parks are located across Normandy, the Brittany coastline, the west of France, the Loire Valley, the Mediterranean coas ...
).
In 2015, Bourne Leisure came fourth in the
100 Best Companies to Work For
''
The 100 Best Companies to Work For is an annual list published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks U.S. companies based on employee happiness and perks''.'' Like the Fortune 500, the list includes both public and private companies. The list wa ...
, a list generated in the UK by
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
newspaper.
In early 2021, Bourne Leisure was purchased by
Blackstone.
Starwood
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. was one of the largest companies that owned, operated, franchised and managed hotels, resorts, spas, residences, and vacation ownership properties. It was acquired by Marriott International in 2016.
...
provided a loan of £1.8 billion to facilitate the purchase, which was an estimated £3 billion.
In September 2022, it was announced that Butlins had been sold by
The Blackstone Group
Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate bu ...
as part of a £300 million deal, to one of the original founding families of Bourne Leisure and was sold to the Harris Family Trust. The deal however does not include Butlins property assets which were sold earlier in the year to the UK’s biggest private pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme for and estimated £300 million.
[ ]
References
{{Butlins
External links
Bourne LeisureHaven HolidaysButlinsWarner Leisure Hotels
Butlins
Companies based in Hemel Hempstead
Leisure companies of the United Kingdom
Tourism in the United Kingdom
2021 mergers and acquisitions