AA up for sale

Centrica, Britain’s biggest gas and electricity supplier, is to sell off its non-core asset the Automobile Association

The sale of the AA is expected to provide for a substantial cash return to shareholders as well as to pay for more gas acquisitions.

The group paid £1.1bn for the AA in 1999. The effective price, however, was £740m as the motoring organisation came with £360m of cash. AA’s profits have risen from £6m in 1999 to £93m last year. Its membership has risen from 9.5m to 15m over the same period.