Sales talk surrounds holiday specialist

David Gorman, an analyst with Milkstone, said the buyer could be another company or a private equity group.

Holidaybreak, which provides residential outdoor education and adventure trips for school children, is valued at about £225m.

“It’s an unusual business in many ways to acquire because there’s a broad range of different holiday companies in there and it would be interesting to see what an acquirer would want to do with them,” said Mr Gorman.

In May, Holidaybreak, which has its hotel breaks division based in York, reported a wider first-half pre-tax loss as a harsh winter and difficult economy hurt consumer spending.

Analyst Greg Johnson, at Shore Capital, said: “With the way trading has been across the industry, there’s not that many in a strong position to buy something like Holidaybreak.”