Haven Holidays - History - Acquisitions

Acquisitions

The current Haven chain is formed from a number of acquisitions by its former brand, British Holidays, from the late 1980s, cumulating in the acquisition of Rank Leisure in 2000.

In October 2000, Bourne Leisure purchased The Rank Group's UK leisure arm, Rank Leisure, for £700 million, which included the Haven, Butlin's and Warner Leisure Hotels chains. At the time of acquisition, Rank Leisure's Haven Holidays operated 55 resorts, whilst British Holidays operated 23.

Bourne decided to retain larger operating units which accounted for approximately 85% of their customer flow, making it possible to upgrade the Haven parks to the same standard of the British Holidays chain.

Subsequently, the company disposed of 43 Haven and British Holidays resorts between 2001 and 2004. A number were sold to independent ventures and management buy-outs (for example, British Holidays' Lido Beach in Prestatyn, Clwyd ). However a number of growing leisure chains acquired larger quantities of sites, including :-

• Park Resorts, a management buy-out backed by CBPE, acquired 12 freehold resorts from the Haven chain in 2001.
• Parkdean Holidays acquired 3 Haven and 2 British Holidays resorts in 2004
• Park Holidays UK, at the time known as Cinque Ports Leisure, purchased a further 9 parks.

Far Grange Park & Golf Club, Skipsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, was purchased by Bourne Leisure in 2007, being the first acquisition by Bourne Leisure since Rank Leisure in 2000. The park appeared in the Haven 2008 holiday brochure, issued in November 2007. However it has since been removed and now trades as a separate entity to the Haven chain in the Bourne Leisure group.