The owner of the Steam Packet Company has sold more than two hundred and eighty million pounds of shares as it prepares to go on another shopping spree.

Macquarie Bank, said it had sold the shares to institutional investors to replenish capital and fund potential acquisitions, including a stake in Eurotunnel.

Macquarie buys companies that it bundles into funds, offering those to investors and managing them for a fee.

Macquarie has about a billion pounds of assets - including the Steam Packet, Icon Parking Systems in Manhattan, and Smarte Carte, the world's biggest airport-trolley operator - that it plans to sell into funds by September.

Eurotunnel, manager of the tunnel that links Britain and France, said earlier this week it may bring in Macquarie Bank and Goldman Sachs Group as investors to help cut its six point three billion pounds of debt.

Earlier this week, Macquarie Bank reported a 13 percent rise in full- year profit to a record four hundred and eighty five million pounds, the bank's 14th consecutive year of record annual earnings.