The chief executive of the mini conglomerate Essentra is to follow one of its demerged businesses out of the door.

Essentra was formerly known as Filtrona, the name of the cigarette filter tip business that had once been part of Bunzl. Essentra demerged in 2005 and was in such a crisis by 2017 that it brought in Paul Forman, who had cleaned up the Coats fibres business, and gave him the task of doing the same job and unravelling the non-functioning businesses that previous management had put together.

Having sold the packaging business for £312 million, Essentra announced that it had signed an agreement for the sale of the filters business to a private family investment vehicle for £262 million including the valuation of joint

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