Investors have fun at Center Parcs

BUYERS shouted 'Hi-de-hi' to holiday camp operator

They belly-flopped from 103p to a sickly 89p recently when up to 100 holidaymakers were struck down by gastroenteritis at its Longleat Forest resort in Wiltshire. CP offered compensation to those who fell ill and yesterday confirmed that associated costs were minimal and that there has since been no apparent impact on bookings.

Indeed, occupancy rates at their UK resorts in Sherwood Forest, Nottingham, Elveden in Suffolk and Longleat in Wiltshire remain strong. The group's advertising includes the slogan 'a holiday the weather cannot spoil' because the focal point of each holiday village is an indoor sub-tropical swimming paradise or 'dome'. Come rain, sleet, snow or high winds, the family can still enjoy constant subtropical temperatures in their swimwear.

Center Parcs has confirmed it is considering developing a new UK holiday village and the launch of a fifth site was one of a number of growth opportunities it is examining. A large holiday village takes at least three years to design and plan and costs around £120m.

Clubhaus shareholders were bunkered by a £56m management buyout of the golf club operator.

They will get 0.165p a share - an 80.6% discount to the share price when it admitted it could be sold last September. Bondholders are also taking a bath by accepting new shares worth 19% less than the value of their bonds. Managing director Charlie Parker is leading the offer with backing from Legal & General Ventures. His team will own 13% of the company. Debtladen Clubhaus owns 11 golf courses including the Castle Royal in Reading.

Dark-grey clouds hovered above Holidaybreak as shares of the specialist holidays group were blown away by a profit warning. They collapsed 105p to 498p after the company said that its camping division, its largest profits contributor, is trading below expectations.

It blamed overcapacity and a late-booking trend for a 20% drop in camping sales for summer 2004. Teather & Greenwood says pessimism should not be overdone. Although the broker has downgraded its pretax profit forecasts for 2004 to £26.8m from £32.7m and from £37.3m to £30.6m for 2005, analyst Mark Reed believes Holidaybreak remains undervalued.

Reed is happy that the new head of camping division, Matthew Cheetham, is reviewing the business, slashing overheads by some £1m to £1.5m and in mobile homes capacity of between 5% and 15% next year.

The Footsie firmed 8.9 points to 4546.2 with business towards the close held in check by Wall Street's early fall of 52 points. Sentiment in New York was depressed by the sudden death of fast-food giant McDonalds' chief executive Jim Cautalupo.

Sterling edged up to $1.8081, while the euro eased to 66.4p and $1.2017.

Retailers were all the rage following private equity group Permira's proposed £940m or 375p-per-share offer for troubled WH Smith, 89 1/2p higher at 349 1/2p.

Punters piled into Marks & Spencer (13p better at 277 1/2p) on blue sky speculation that either US break-up specialist KKR or super-rich Philip Green might make a move for the struggling High Street giant. Don't hold your breath.

Heavy buying on expectations that today's annual figures will please lifted the UK's number-one supermarket group Tesco 8 1/4p to 260p. Consensus analysts' forecasts are pretax profits to rise to £1.67bn from £1.36bn last time.

Floated on Aim at 75p by WH Ireland, shares of Asia Energy jumped to 87 1/2p before closing at 82 1/2p, a premium of 7 1/2p.

Talk that it is homing in on its first telecoms acquisition helped cash shell Roshni Investments improve 1 1/2p to 33 1/2p.

Cambridge Mineral Resources rose 1 3/4p more to 16 3/8p after hedge fund RAB Capital (6p better at 55 1/2p) increased its shareholding by a further 2.9m shares to 26%. CMR's associated company Hereward Ventures hardened 1/2p to 7 1/8p in sympathy.

Pic'n'mix retailer Woolworths advanced 2 1/4p to 40 3/4p on hefty buying fuelled by revived takeover hopes and following a Arbuthnot recommendation.

MAIDEN interim results from Aim-quoted Griffin Group pleased the market and the close was 3/4p better at 6 1/2p. Pretax profits at the US corporate finance and UK brokerage jumped to £138,500 from £5,466 and fee income to £1.1m from £305,171. With £427,216 cash in the bank, chief executive Adrian Stecyk is on the acquisition trail. He wants to bolt on a UK corporate finance house.