BRITAIN’s biggest caravan park operator, Park Resorts, has called in advisers to examine possible mergers with rival holiday groups.

US buyout group GI Partners has hired advisory firm Hawkpoint to assess strategic options for Park Resorts, which received a £15m capital injection from GI earlier this year.

GI bought Park Resorts, which operates in seaside locations including Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, and Camber Sands, East Sussex, for £440m in 2007 in a highly leveraged management buyout that made millions for the founders but saddled the firm with close to £350m in debt.

Sources close to GI Partners insist that Hawkpoint has been brought in because Park Resorts wants to lead an anticipated wave of consolidation in the sector, which has been hit hard by the credit crunch.

However, industry sources say that UK caravan and holiday-park operators face the toughest conditions for 15 years and that the most likely motivation to merge with a competitor would be to slash costs.

One industry executive said: “It’s going to be very difficult for the next six months and everyone’s got to be careful given what’s going on. Any distractions are going to be to the detriment of the business.”

A mere six months after sharing around £12m from the GI takeover, its three founding directors walked away from the firm. The team, led by chief executive David Vaughan, had already made £18m from a previous private-equity buyout of the firm they founded in 2001.

Vaughan was replaced by Martin Grant, the former chief executive of motorway-servicestation operator Roadchef. Grant has bought a further three sites and upgraded a number of sites acquired in a merger with Great British Holiday Parks in 2004.

GI Partners has a strong interest in the leisure sector. Its other investments include Orchid, the pub company. It also used to own Yates’s bars.

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