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 on Thursday that a deal was likely to be announced in the next few days.

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.

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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.

A spokesman for Macquarie declined to comment.

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