Elektra Direkt, a new retailing arm of Preussen Elektra, offers both a "family" plan and a "single" plan.

The company's retailing arm, which includes managed pubs, Thresher off-licences and restaurants like Pizza Hut and Beefeater, showed a 17 per cent profits rise.

Tosco, however, has not been able to build up its retailing arm as fast as its production business, making it susceptible to the volatile swings in the wholesale gasoline market.

An important feature of the New Zealand market is that all the major generators also own retailing arms.

The new committee charged with rebuilding Campeau's American retailing arm is expected to give high priority to arranging new mortgages for many of the 125 retail buildings that the company owns outright.

But now the retailing arms of many charities are run by hard-nosed professional retailers.

The jarring pricing and marketing wars in the personal computing industry added a new casualty today - the retailing arm of the Compuadd Computer Corporation.

Barnesandnoble.com, the electronic retailing arm of the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain, signed agreements with Microsoft to develop an electronic bookstore on its existing Web site by the spring.

These days, Tosco is pushing to build up its retailing arm.

Non-core businesses including its retailing arm was back in the black with profits of £1.7m.