Parkdean venture pays off

THE venture capitalists Midland Montagu, County NatWest and 3i have made tidy gains from their investments in Parkdean Leisure, which comes to the stock market today valued at pounds 12m, writes John Murray.

The venturers bought into the company, which runs holiday parks in Scotland and East Anglia, at 20p and 60p. Charterhouse Tilney yesterday placed 7.5 million shares at 120p. The management, which bought Parkdean from Beazer in 1989, failed to share substantially in the bonanza, but the team will retain about 8 per cent of the equity.

The pounds 7.6m net proceeds of the placing will be used to reduce debt.

Parkdean forecasts operating profits of pounds 1.4m for the year to 30 November, giving a notional p/e ratio of 13.8.

CentreGold, the home computer and video games group to be listed this month, reported profits of pounds 2.9m in the year to 31 July against pounds 2.1m last year.