Cold-storage company Norish has sold an operation in England for £4 million (€5.9 million) less than it paid for it almost exactly six years ago.

Norish said yesterday that it was selling its Kent-based Belvedere facility for £2.8 million in cash, net of costs. It bought the company in 1999 for £7 million in cash and loan notes.

The Belvedere business is involved in storage handling and other services for commodities cocoa and coffee.

Norish said that it was selling up because it had lost a cocoa bean cleaning contract last year and had failed to retain its main coffee contract earlier this year.

The facility is being taken over by Mrs Panna Mashru.

Norish will use the proceeds of the transaction to eliminate its debt, which stood at £1.9 million at the end of December 2004.

Belvedere contributed £400,000 before central costs to Norish's profits in 2004. Norish as a whole posted pretax profits of £264,000 last year.

The company said the net book value attributable to Belvedere was £1.9 million.

Norish's executive chairman, Ted O'Neill, said the disposal of Belvedere would allow the company to focus its efforts on its other facilities.

These "continue to perform in line with expectations", he said.

The company received a takeover approach in September last year but discussions on the proposal ended without success in November.

Last month, the company announced that it would delist its shares from the Irish market and transfer its listing in London to the Alternative Investment Market. This move was completed at the start of this month.

Norish shares closed unchanged at 43.5p last night.