A former owner of Moto is closing in on a £900m takeover of Roadchef, another of Britain's biggest operators of motorway service stations.
Sky News has learnt that Macquarie, the Australian financial services giant, has agreed a deal to buy Roadchef from Antin Infrastructure Partners.
City sources said that a deal was likely to be announced shortly. The transaction will be one of the largest in the sector for years and will underline investors' appetite to buy such businesses at a time when motorway services areas (MSAs) are attempting to exploit the accelerating transition to electric vehicles.
Roadchef is the third-largest MSA operator in Britain behind Moto and Welcome Break.
According to Antin's website, Roadchef has a 22pc share of the market by number of sites, with 30 locations across the UK serving 52m visitors annually.
Antin initially invested in the business in 2014 in a deal reported at the time to be worth about £150m. The sale is understood to be to Macquarie's asset management arm, which runs money for third-party investors.
The Australian banking group previously owned Moto, selling it to the universities pension scheme USS in 2015.
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