The perennial favourite market story, which must have been running for 15 years, that Rank Organisation Plc was about to sell its 49% stake in Rank Xerox Ltd, finally began to come true yesterday – but the market was disappointed when Rank announced that it would sell 40% of the 49% stake – 19.6% of the equity, to Xerox Corp for ú620m, valuing the entire stake at ú1,500m where the City had thought it worth ú2,000m. Xerox now holds 70.6%, leaving Rank with 29.4%. Rank Organisation shares fell 12 pence to 391 pence in early trading. Rank Xerox is the Xerox Corp marketing company across Europe, and has some local manufacturing.
