Aviva sells BSM driving school

Insurer Aviva has sold British School of Motoring (BSM) to German holding firm Arques Industries AG.

The company did not mention the purchase price but gross assets of the driving school business totalled £36m as at December 2008.

Aviva acquired BSM, which operates a franchised network of around 2,700 driving instructors, as part of its purchase of RAC in 2005.More than one in seven British drivers are thought to pass their test with BSM, which conducts more than four million lessons each year and signs up 130,000 new drivers annually. The company, which employs more than 600 people across Britain in 96 local centres and its Bristol head office, says that someone passes a driving test with it every two minutes.