The Park Cakes bakery is to be sold as part of a £160 million deal.

The bakery's owner, Northern Foods, announced it is to sell its bread, pastry, cakes and flour businesses to Vision Capital, a London-based independent investment firm, for £160 million.

Along with the previous sale of NFT Distribution, the deal will mean 9,000 of its 20,200 staff moving out of the firm.

As well as the Bolton bakery, which employs 440 people on Bella Street, in Daubhill, Bolton, the sale will affect plants in Bath, London, Sheffield, Manchester, Worksop, Langley Mill, Nottingham, Holbeach in Lincolnshire and Shrewsbury.

Northern Foods makes own-label goods for food retailers, and branded foods such as Fox's Biscuits and Goodfella's pizza The proposed sale to Vision covers Fletchers Bakeries, Chilled Pastry, Park Cake Bakeries and Smiths Flour Mills.

Leeds-based Northern Foods said the move will allow it to concentrate on its five core categories of pizzas, biscuits, ready meals, sandwiches and salads.

The company announced a proposed sale of the business in June this year, after axeing 150 jobs at its head office, and 425 jobs at the company's Oldham Park Cakes site.

It said it wanted to raise about £200 million from the sale.

Vision Capital said it would not comment until the deal was approved by Northern Foods shareholders, but the move, which has secured the immediate future of the jobs in Bolton, will see the Park Cakes employees move from Northern Foods to Vision Capital. The name of the company will stay the same.