Private bank Duncan Lawrie made an operating loss of £7.5 million last year before it was split and sold off.

The institution, which has one of its four offices in Wrotham, left a £20 million dent in the annual results of previous owner Camellia, the agriculture and engineering business employing 80,000 people worldwide, pushing it into a loss.

Its sale to wealth managers Brewin Dolphin for £28 million is expected to be completed next month after plans were announced in December.

At the same time it was revealed the majority of its UK loans and some of its loans from its Isle of Man operations were sold to private bank Arbuthnot Latham & Co for £42.7 million.

Former owner Camellia, which has its headquarters in Linton, Maidstone, said at the time it was selling because low interest rates had lowered its ability to make returns for investors.

Chief executive Tom Franks said: “A combination of lower interest rates, a weaker housing market and the consequent need to inject significantly more capital than we had anticipated led to the decision to dispose of this operation.”

The company revealed today its decision to sell had pushed it into an overall loss of £5.9 million last year, having made a profit of £7.2 million in 2015.

“A combination of lower interest rates, a weaker housing market and the consequent need to inject significantly more capital than we had anticipated led to the decision to dispose of this operation...” - Tom Franks, Camellia

However, the expected future gain on sale of Duncan Lawrie’s UK asset management business of £19.2 million is not included in the results.

Camellia’s profit from continuing operations were steady at £26.5 million last year.

The group grows a range of crops around the world, including tea in India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Malawi.

It farms macadamia nuts in Malawi, South Africa and Kenya, avocado in Kenya and has arable farming in Brazil, rubber plantations in Bangladesh, and grows citrus, pistachio and almonds in the USA, plus grapes in South Africa and pineapples in Kenya.

Its agriculture business made a trading profit of £29.9 million off turnover of £207.1 million.

It also has engineering investments in Midlands and the North Sea, the latter of which was affected by the low price of oil.

The division made a trading loss of £2.6 million off turnover of £18.8 million.

Chairman Malcolm Perkins was cautious about the year ahead and said the outlook for 2017 “is uncertain”.

He said: “Climate change, in the form of erratic rainfall patterns, heat waves and storms makes predicting crop volumes difficult.

“For example, the start of 2017 has seen droughts continuing in parts of South Africa and significantly reduced rainfall in Kenya and parts of the tea growing areas in India.

“The impact of this on production volumes and prices has yet to be established.

“The continuing low oil price provides a challenge to our oil service based engineering businesses, however the resilience of the UK economy has seen the other UK based businesses busier than they have been for some time.”