Another great British food brand sold to foreign investors as American firm takes control of Hovis bread for £30 million A 51 per cent share of the brand is sold to US investors The Gores Group Previous owner Premier Foods will retain a 49 per cent stake in Hovis The bread producer dates back to 1887 and is an iconic British brand It is the latest British food brand to be sold to foreign investors recently An iconic British manufacturing giant that dates back to 1887 has been sold to an American investor. A majority share in bread and flour firm Hovis, which is best known for its nostalgic advert featuring a boy pushing a bicycle up a hill, has been sold by cash-strapped Premier Foods to US investment firm The Gores Group for £30million. The move safeguard's the future of the firm, which has spent the past six years selling off assets, but it is a blow to British manufacturing, which has lost several iconic brands to overseas investors recently. Hovis, the iconic British bread manufacturer dating back more than 125 years, has been sold to US investors In 2010 chocolate producer Cadbury was sold to American giant Kraft Foods for £12billion, and last year Weetabix was sold to China's state-owned Bright Foods for £1.2billion. Hovis' previous parent firm, Premier Foods, which employs around 9,000 staff in the UK, has sold a 51 per cent stake in Hovis to the Americans, and will keep the rest. Despite having spent the past six years selling off assets, Premier still has a pension deficit and debt pile of £1.3billion, but bosses there say the deal is good news for the business. Premier chief executive officer Gavin Darby said today: 'We believe it's a win-win for both halves of our business. They say the cash injection for Hovis will be reinvested in its grocery brands including Mr Kipling cakes. Premier plans to invest about £20million in a new line for Snack Pack cake slices at a factory in Carlton, Barnsley. The two parties are locked into the venture for at least three years. The iconic British bread brand is best known for its Ridley Scott-directed advertisement, Boy on the Bike Hovis - the name comes from the Latin 'hominis vis', meaning strength of a man, began in the late 1880s when Richard Smith found a way to cook bread with its wheatgerm without losing any of its nutritional value. He teamed up with Macclesfield miller Thomas Fitton, and in 1887 they registered Smith's Patent Process Germ Flour. The name was deemed too much of a mouthful, so in 1890 they staged a national competition to come up with a name. A man named Herbert Grime suggested the winning name, Hovis, and the bakers not only gave him his £25 prize but also gave his wife an annual pension after Mr Grime's death. By 1895 sales of Hovis had exceeded one million loaves per week, and the firm's sales were boosted further when, in 1924, scientists discovered that there was Vitamin B in wheatgerm. In 1973, an advertisement for the bread directed by Oscar-winning film director, Ridley Scott, boosted the bread firm's fortunes further. The 'boy on the bike' advertisment, featuring a small boy pushing a bike up a cobbled hill in Dorset, was later voted Britain's favourite television advert.