Turnaround specialist Melrose Industries has agreed to sell its Nortek air conditioning business for £2.6billion to a US company as it looks to raise cash after being hit hard by the Covid pandemic. The group - which bought prestigious engineer GKN in 2018 and was recently criticised for closing down the GKN Birmingham car parts plant - said it has sold 73 per cent of the Nortek business to Madison Industries. It will return 'a portion' of the proceeds from the sale to shareholders, use £100million to reduce the deficit of the pension scheme of GKN UK and the rest will go towards paying down debts.