P.M. BRIEFING : Goldsmith Sells Food Company

An investor group led by financier Sir James Goldsmith today sold a 29.8% stake in Rank Hovis McDougall PLC for the equivalent of $594 million, a loss of $17 million, the group and its brokers said.

The stake in the British food company was sold on the open market because Goldsmith, 57, has retired from the business world, said a spokesman for the investor group, Suningdale Holdings PLC.

Goldsmith had been Suningdale’s food companies expert, and after he announced his retirement in October, the investors decided to sell the stake, he said.

Goldsmith said he was retiring after he abandoned his hostile $26-billion bid for the British tobacco and financial services company BAT Industries PLC.

Suningdale purchased the 100 million Rank Hovis McDougall shares at the equivalent of $7.84 each in 1989. They were sold today at the equivalent of $5.94 each, said the broker Cazenove and Co.