Europe's largest non-food retailer, Pinault Printemps Redoute, announced yesterday that it had sold its 73.5% stake in Rexel electrical equipment. The group made the move in order to focus completely on the luxury goods market. The sale of Rexel sees PPR's net debt decline by approximately GBP3.5 billion, making this the largest European private equity deal of the year. Since October 2002, PPR has relinquished a number of non-luxury companies, thereby raising GBP5 billion in equity to focus on its ten luxury labels, spearheaded by Gucci. Once this latest sale has been completed, PPR will have concluded the sale of all its business-to-business activities, and will be able to concentrate wholly on individual customers through its luxury and retail activities, a spokesperson for the company told Reuters.