Trevor Hemmings, the former Pontin’s tycoon, has snapped up Blackpool Tower and several of Britain’s most famous seaside piers in a £74m deal.
Leisure Parcs, which is controlled by Hemmings’ family interests, has bought most of entertainment giant First Leisure’s resorts division for cash, ending months of speculation over the future of the attractions.
As well as the tower in the Lancashire holiday resort, Leisure Parcs is also buying Blackpool’s three piers and the Winter Gardens conference centre, plus piers in Eastbourne, Llandudno and Southsea.
In April, First Leisure, which is chaired by former BBC TV and Channel 4 boss Michael Grade, revealed it had received a number of unsolicited approaches for its resorts division.
But First Leisure is keeping hold of the Trecco Bay caravan park in south Wales. The park had been part of the resorts division.
The group has made a substantial investment in the park in recent years and it now makes an annual profit of more than £3m.
Grade said today: “The disposal is another major step towards strengthening the group’s position in its core growth markets – nightclubs and bars, health and fitness and family entertainment.”
Earlier this year, First Leisure sold off its bingo division to management for £38m. Grade said the £112m proceeds from the two sales would be used to reduce the group’s borrowings.
Hemmings is said to be worth about £300m and made almost £60m by building up the Pontin’s holiday camp business and then selling it to brewer Scottish & Newcastle in 1989. He is rumoured to have beaten off a rival bid from Roy Page, managing director of First Leisure’s resorts division.
When it posted its interim results in June, First Leisure said trading in the opening weeks of its second half had fallen below expectations, but the World Cup had made it difficult to tell if this would continue.
EGi News 01/09/98
