Tilbury Douglas has sold its Scottish house building business to Persimmon for £23m in order to focus on service-related activities. ... [more]

Rank has sold Pinewood Studios to a consortium backed by 3i for £62m which could be followed by the sale of its remaining film-related activities... [more]

Smiths Industries is to acquire Actuation Systems the US-based aircraft utilities business from BAE Systems for £63m... [more]

Rank is selling its chain of 75 Odeon cinemas to Cinven for £280m and the business will be merged with Cinven's 57 ABC cinemas... [more]

Border Construction has bought Finlaysons the Galashiels-based roofing and joinery business from the Lothian and Borders Co-operative Society... [more]

Courtaulds Textiles is to sell its Standfast and Weavestyle furnishings operations to Walker Greenbank for £9m and is now looking to sell Zorbit nursery products and Christy towels... [more]

Kerry Group has sold its DCA bakery business in the US and Canada to Pillsbury the Diageo subsidiary for £62m... [more]

Aberdeen Asset Management has acquired the fund management arm of the Irish state electricity company ESB for £5.8m... [more]

ITE Group is to acquire the E-Business exhibition from Redman Media for up to £10m... [more]

Specialist Computer Holdings has acquired the computer distribution business of Buhrmann of the Netherlands for about £115m in order to meet rising demand for pan-European IT services... [more]

Morgan Crucible is to sell its power industry products business to Tyco International of the US for £44m... [more]

Dawson International is to sell its Pringle knitwear business to Fang Brothers Knitting of Hong Kong for about £5m... [more]

Utilitec has sold its Kenton Utilities mechanical and civil engineering business to a management buy-out for £13m... [more]

Science Systems the software company is to buy CODA from Baan of the Netherlands for £32m as part of a strategy to become a leader in the field of internet-based financial services... [more]

PowerGen has sold East Midlands Electricity Contracting to ABB for undisclosed terms... [more]

Riva Group is selling its Business Solutions Division to eXegeSys of the US as part of a restructuring by Riva's parent company Anker that will leave Westhoughton as the group's European head office... [more]

Axis-Shield is acquiring the point-of-care testing business of Nycomed Pharma of Norway for £22m... [more]

Tetley is selling its US coffee businesses to Rowland Coffee Roasters and Mother Parker's Tea & Coffee for undisclosed terms in order to focus on its core teabag brands... [more]

Allied Domecq is to sell its John Bull international pub franchise business to Charles Wells the Bedford family brewer for under £10m... [more]

Aggregate Industries is expanding its US aggregates business with the £23m acquisition of assets from Holst Excavating Mobilcrete and Sioux Valley Ready Mix... [more]