British engineering group AMRC has sold its French subsidiary SPIE (turnover 2.58 billion euro in 2005, 23,000 employees) to the PAI investment fund for 1.04 billion euro. The transaction will generate a capital gain of 220 billion pounds sterling and a cash sum of one billion pounds. After the sale of its subsidiary, AMEC's turnover will fall from 5 billion to 2 billion pounds per annum.