The 150m deal, which is set to be completed in February, includes intellectual property and research and development laboratories and ink and toner factories in the UK and the US.

Avecia's products include dye inks used in desktop printers and wide-format proofers and polymerised toners used in laser printers and digital presses. It supplies inks, dyes and intellectual property related to ink-jet inks for Canon, Epson and HP.

The sale of the division, which had sales of 62m in 2004, is the firm's fifth disposal in 2005. The firm is jointly owned by Polestar parent Investcorp and fellow private equity firm Cinven.

"The driving force is the ink-jet part of the business especially technology to improve the durability of ink-jet inks used in photographic printing. This has been driven by the photo side of the [Fuji] business," said Fujifilm Graphic Systems UK director Keith Dalton.