Ford sells Kwik-Fit for huge loss

Kwik-Fit employs more than 11,000 people

Ford has sold the car maintenance and repair business Kwik-Fit to private equity group CVC Capital Partners for £330m.

The move is part of Ford's current policy of selling off its non-core operations in order to raise cash.

But the sale represents a big loss for the car maker, which bought Kwik-Fit for £1bn in 1999.

Kwik-Fit is Europe's largest car repair chain, with 2,500 service centres and more than 11,000 employees.

'Positive outcome'

Ford made a loss of $5bn in the last financial year, and has embarked on a restructuring plan which is seeing it cut thousands of jobs and concentrate on its basic car-making business.

Ford said the purchase of Kwik-Fit would be completed using a new company, which is financed by CVC managed funds.

Ford will retain a 19% stake in the new company so it can benefit from any future growth in the business.

"The sale of Kwik-Fit is a positive outcome for Ford and CVC," a Ford spokesman said.

"As we have said since the beginning of the year, we want to divest non-core assets and this gets us very close towards our goal for the year."

US deals

Ford also announced that it has sold Collision Team of America (CTA), a chain of US accident repair centres.

But it added that it had decided not to go ahead with the sale of Hertz Equipment Rental Corporation (HERC).

"US capital spending is not recovering as quickly as anticipated, thereby delaying the recovery we expected in the equipment rental industry," said Ford group vice president of business strategy, Martin Inglis.