THE owner of some of Britain’s best-known golf and country clubs has been put up for sale just two years after it ended a torrid time as the quoted leisure group Clubhaus.

The Club Company, which is owned by Park Lane Acquisitions, a vehicle controlled by Legal & General Ventures, the private-equity group, has begun negotiations with several potential buyers of the firm.

Among Club Company’s key assets are the Castle Royle venue in Maidenhead and Nizels, near Sevenoaks. It is thought a sale could value the firm at up to £100m.

Analysts said this weekend that other private-equity groups, as well as rival leisure companies, could be interested in Club Company.

The debt-laden Clubhaus was taken private in April 2004 in a £56m deal, which came at an 80% discount to the company’s share price the day before it announced it was putting itself up for sale in September 2003.

Despite the heavily-discounted deal, shareholders were persuaded to accept after a warning that a refusal would result in insolvency.

A year earlier the group narrowly avoided going bust after a contentious debt-for-equity swap left bondholders owning about 80% of Clubhaus.

Last September, L&G Ventures announced a £60m refinancing of Club Company, with a £60m debt facility provided by Allied Irish Bank.

L&G Ventures declined to comment on the sale, and Club Company’s management could not be reached for comment this weekend.

The decision to sell Club Company comes as a string of leisure companies with lucrative property assets are changing hands.

London & Regional, the property company headed by the Livingstone brothers, recently secured a deal to snap up Next Generation, the fitness-clubs operator.

De Vere Group, the quoted operator of the famous Belfry golf course, has been contacted by several potential predators, including Permira. The latest is understood to be Alternative Hotels Group, the vehicle set up by Richard Balfour-Lynn, chief executive of Marylebone Warwick Balfour. It snapped up Rentokil Initial’s conferences arm last year.

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