HOUSEHOLD NAMES THAT VANISHED...

1984

Furniture group MFI sold to Associated Dairies Group. MFI finally collapsed in 2008.

1988

ROWNTREE MACKINTOSH, manufacturer of Kit Kat, left following a £2.6 billion takeover by Swiss food group Nestle.

1990

BRITISH & COMMONWEALTH, a sprawling financial group, went under after a disastrous diversification spree – most notably the purchase of Atlantic Computers.

1993

FERRANTI, an electronics giant, collapsed after its catastrophic acquisition of US defence company International Signal and Control.

1999

GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY (GEC), the industrial conglomerate, merged its defence operations with British Aerospace to create BAE Systems – the rest of GEC becoming Marconi. It then fell victim to the tech crash of 2000 with the banks taking control in 2002. Sweden’s Ericsson bought the majority of Marconi in 2005 with the remainder becoming Telent, a private company.

2000

BRITISH HOME STORES was taken private by Philip Green who eventually merged it with Arcadia. It was then controversially sold in 2015 to entrepreneur Dominic Chappell for £1. BHS was liquidated in December 2016.

2006

Shipping company P&O was sold to Dubai Ports, but the brand has survived.

2007

Chemist chain BOOTS was bought by private equity firm KKR for £11billion. Now part of US giant Walgreens.

2010

Beloved chocolate brand CADBURY’S sold to US food conglomerate Kraft for nearly £12 billion. Now part of US group Mondelez.