Dutch retailer Ahold has agreed to sell its Brazilian retail chain G. Barbosa Comercial to an affiliate of US-based investment firm ACON Investments for an estimated 90 million euros ($122.4 million). Ahold, the world's fourth-biggest food retail and foodservice group in sales terms, said in a statement on Friday the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2005 and the sale completes the Brazilian part of its disposal programme.

The group has sought to raise at least 2.5 billion euros from total disposals by the end of 2004, as part of a recovery plan to restore its financial position following a 2003 accounting scandal involving profit overstatements.

Analysts have said the running total for Ahold's asset sales is about 2.7 billion euros. Ahold did not say how much it had sold G. Barbosa Comercial for but analysts have estimated the proceeds at around 90 million euros.

"With this transaction, Ahold has completed its Brazilian divestment programme," said the group, which owns the Netherlands' biggest supermarket chain and generates more than 70 percent of its turnover in the United States.

Ahold has already sold about $500 million worth of Brazilian operations, including the Bompreco supermarkets, to US giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

G. Barbosa is a food retailer with 32 hypermarkets and supermarkets with a strong position in the states of Sergipe and Bahia in the north-east of Brazil.

ACON Investments has other retailing investments in Latin America.

Copyright Reuters, 2005