Boots, the UK health and beauty retailer, has agreed to sell its Halfords chain to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.

Boots will sell the car parts and bike chain for �427m and will then return the net proceeds to shareholders.

The company announced in April that it would either demerge or sell Halfords so it could focus on its health and beauty business.

However, Boots has now admitted that sales in its core stores are being knocked by poor weather.

Analysts had estimated a price tag of about �500m for Halfords when the sale was first announced in April, but this was before recent falls in the FTSE index.

Boots, however, said it was "very satisfied with the price".

Poor weather?

The retailer is now concentrating its efforts on its health and beauty business, where sales slowed in the first quarter to June 2002.

Overall like-for-like sales were up just 0.9% at the main Boots The Chemist, against expectations of between one and 2.5%.

The group admitted sales had been "challenging" in the period and blamed poor weather along with a number of "one-off events".

But chief executive Steve Russell said new product launches, store refurbishments and improvements to the supply chain would boost sales in the coming months.