THE Co-operative Group has sold its farming business to the Wellcome Trust for £249m.

The sale includes 15 farms, including three pack houses, almost 40,000 acres (16,000ha) of freehold and third party-owned land, more than 100 residential properties and 27 commercial properties.

The sale will help pay off the group’s debt and to invest in its food shops, funeral care, insurance and legal services.

In July, the group announced the £620m sale of its pharmacy division to the Bestway Group.

The Co-operative said it was pleased to have found a buyer that would continue to develop the farms business, while maintaining existing services for local communities, such as the pioneering educational programme for children, “Farm to Fork”.

All Farmcare management and employees would transfer with immediate effect.

The Wellcome Trust is the world’s second highestspending charitable foundation, dedicated to driving improvements in human and animal health.

It spends more than £700m a year on supporting biomedical research, the humanities and the social sciences, and on educating the public in these fields.

Its achievements include funding much of the sequencing of the human genetic code, and research that enabled the introduction of frontline drugs used to fight malaria.

The trust owns property worth about £1.8bn, including a major estate in south Kensington, London, and farms in Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, and Cheshire.

Richard Pennycook, The Co-operative Group’s interim group chief executive, said: “In the Wellcome Trust, we have a buyer whose values are closely aligned to those of the Co-operative.

“It has acquired an excellent farming business characterised by the quality and professionalism of colleagues and high levels of customer service.

“I expect the farming business to continue to thrive under their committed longterm ownership.”

Danny Truell, the trust’s chief investment officer, said: “The trust’s philosophy is to provide long-term investment for the businesses and property we hold in good times and in bad.

“We will take this approach to running Farmcare Trading Ltd as a going concern, giving a business that is already strong and successful, the support and resources it needs to grow, to the benefit of employees, tenants, partners and local communities.”

The Co-operative farms are in Aberdeenshire, Ashby St Ledgers, Blairgowrie, Borders, Carnoustie, Coldham, Down Ampney, Goole, Highland Court, Langley Brook, Longforgan; Louth, Rockingham, Stoughton, Tillington and Wykeham.