Marconi sells stake in Hotpoint's owner for £144m

Marconi is selling its 50% stake in Hotpoint's owner General Domestic Appliances in a £144m deal.

Italian household appliance firm Merloni Elettrodomestici is buying the stake for £121m, plus a dividend of £23m.

The communications equipment provider says it remains on track to raise £500m from the sale of non-core assets by March, 2002.

The sale of the stake in GDA follows yesterday's sell-off by Marconi of its petrol pump business for £225m, together with a bond buy-back programme.

Marconi aims to reduce its debt burden of £3.5bn to between £2.7bn and £3.2bn by the end of March.

GDA, the largest supplier of domestic appliances in the UK, made pre-tax profits of £36m for the year ended March 31.

The company designs, makes and services a wide range of general domestic appliances under the Creda and Cannon brand names, as well as Hotpoint.

GDA, which employs 7,000 staff in the UK, was established in 1989 as a joint venture between GEC - the former defence and communications firm which was renamed Marconi in 1999 - and General Electric of the US.

It has four sites in the UK, at Stoke-on-Trent; Bristol; Bodelwyddan in north Wales; and Peterborough, where it is based. It also employs 120 staff in Ireland.

Merloni sells its products under the tradenames Ariston, Indesit and Scholtes.