BREWING and leisure group Scottish & Newcastle has unveiled plans for to raise £730m with the sell off of two of its best known assets.

The group has agreed to the sale of Center Parcs, the holiday village chain to a French rival and a German finance house, S&N revealed at their AGM yesterday. It hopes to complete the sale next month.

S&N chairman Brian Stewart said "exclusive discussions" were taking place with DB Capital Partners, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, and French holiday firm Pierre et Vacances (P&V), which would be likely to lead to a sale of the chain.

The sale of Center Parcs is expected to fetch about £700m for S&N, which also released details of plans to sell Pontins leisure parks for £30m.

The buyer of the famous Pontins division is Manor Parcs, a chain of leisure camps owned by entrepreneur Trevor Hemmings.

The sale will include eight family centres and the chain's head office in Chorley, Lancashire.

S&N owns 13 Center Parcs, three of which are in the UK with the rest in Europe, employing some 10,000 staff.

The UK Center Parcs, which employ 3,400 people, are in Nottinghamshire, Suffolk and Wiltshire.

Mr Stewart also said S&N's plans to reshape its estate of pubs was going to be more extensive than had previously been planned as themed bars gained in popularity at the expense of traditional pubs.

"This reflects the increasing divergence between the performance of outlets in the growth sectors of branded pubs and pub restaurants," he added.

"Those in the more traditional sectors where we have seen further like-with-like sales declines as well as increasing pressure on our cost base."

In March the brewer said it was to sell 361 pubs across the country for £100m as part of its £1.1bn takeover of rival pub and restaurant group Greenalls.