Busy Bees has sold the freeholds of the 46-place nursery in Welwyn and the 55-place nursery in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire. It has signed 35-year leases on both sites.
The £50m PINE Fund, a Jersey-based unit trust, was set up last year by the Nexus Group and partners Alan Proto and Harry Hyman. It works by buying the freeholds of day nurseries and renting them back to the operator, typically on a 15- to 30-year lease.
The practice of sale-and-leaseback is quite common in other sectors, such as the retail industry.
Busy Bees' finance director, Simon Irons, said that the chain has £30m tied up in capital. 'It's purely about unlocking some of that capital and moving it into other nursery sites,' he said.
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