United Biscuits, the owner of the McVitie’s brand, has been sold to private equity firms Blackstone and PAI Partners for £1.6bn ($3bn), closing a sale process that has seen the group’s European operations split up.

In July, Kraft Foods, the US food giant, acquired UB’s Spanish and Portuguese operations and, in exchange, transferred its 25 per cent stake in the UK’s biggest biscuits maker to the other three owners — PAI, Cinven and MidOcean.