Sales of the century
Page 6
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BUY-OUTS, two of them involving management consortia, have changed the ownership of well-known names in the road transport business.
Unilever has relinquished another hold on the transport business by selling hanging garment specialist Tibbett and Britten to a senior management consortium backed by the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation.
This follows the sale earlier this year of parcels carrier Carryfast to its management, and an attempt to sell Norfolk Line, the ferry line and trailer company which operates between Great Yarmouth and the Netherlands.
In car transport, Silcock Express Holdings, a consortium headed by Silcock and Coiling, managing director Bernard Holmes, has brought Silcock and Calling and its French subsidiary, Express Auto, from Sears Holdings.
The £34m turnover company, which employs 1,000 in Britain, France and Spain, will change its name to Silcock Express "in due course".
The new consortium was backed by National Commercial and Glyns, the Royal Bank of Scotland's corporate finance arm.
And Hunter Distribution, the specialist subsidiary of Hunter Saphir, takes over Cory Distribution's London Colney, Hertfordshire depot on September 22.
This is the latest part of Cory (which Unilever's SPD opted not to buy this year) to be sold. Hunter bought the adjacent Radlett depot from Ocean in 1982.