The Leapfrog nursery chain was acquired last month by Busy Bees. Steve Alexander, chief executive of the Pre-School Learning Alliance, said the £31m paid for all 88 Leapfrog nurseries was far below their book value of £78m.
"The reason I think they did that is private providers are struggling to make ends meet and the Leapfrog shareholders decided it was better to stop the revenue loss and sell at cut price, rather than continue," he said.
CYP Now understands the nurseries under threat may not be making profits and some are facing high rental and business rate costs combined with increased competition from children's centres.
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