Nursery World - To the Point: Nursery Chains

Big deals in the nursery chain market pose little threat to the sector as a whole, says Alan Bentley.

A number of private nursery operators have asked me whether the spate of mergers and acquisitions in our sector is a good or bad development. It is an interesting question.

Busy Bees, one of the country's oldest and most prestigious commercial nursery chains, was sold to an Australian company for around £72m. Barely six months later, Asquith Court was sold to private equity firms for £92m. Now Busy Bees has swallowed up Nord Anglia's day nursery division, making it the largest chain in the UK by far.

Is this a good thing? My personal view is that such changes are, at this stage, certainly for the best. The sector needs proper representation with both media and government, and consolidations go some way to producing meaningful parties to provide that representation.

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