By Maggie Hartford A hi-tech business has been sold as part of a long-term restructuring at its parent group Oxford Instruments.

The group has sold Synchrotron Beamlines, based at Osney Mead, Oxford, to Danish company Danfysik.

All 22 staff have transferred to the new company, which will trade under the name Oxford Danfysik.

Its managing director will be Nigel Boulding, previously marketing director of Oxford Instruments' Superconductivity division.

He said: "We expect the numbers to increase slowly and we are already recruiting two more engineers. We have more than enough work."

Superconductivity's managing director, Steve McQuillan, said: "The synergies between Danfysik and Synchrotron Beamlines are very strong and should ensure a good future for the business and staff."

The sale means that Oxford Instruments finally cuts its links with its first permanent home. Sir Martin started Oxford Instruments in a shed in his garden, and in 1965 he found advertised in the Oxford Mail's sister newspaper The Oxford Times a boat-building shed beside the Thames at Osney Lock.

The only access was by river, but an industrial estate was about to be set up nearby, which became Osney Mead.

A new building went up on the site, which was Oxford Instruments' headquarters until it expanded to new buildings at Eynsham.

The Osney Mead site eventually became the home of the Accelerator Technology business, which once employed 200 people and supplied super-conducting magnets for cutting-edge atom smashers probing the structure of the universe.

The business was hit by the downturn in the economies of Far Eastern countries such as Singapore.

Part of the Accelerator Technology business was absorbed into Oxford Instruments' Superconductivity division and moved to Tubney Woods, near Abingdon.

The remaining business at Osney Mead makes beam lines, which control intense beams of X-rays from synchrotrons. These are used by scientists for research into sub-atomic particles, the building blocks of matter.

Oxford Instruments' largest building on Osney Mead will eventually be sold and Oxford Danfysik will lease Ferry Mills 1 and 2, smaller buildings on the industrial estate, also owned by Oxford Instruments.

Last year, the group shed 150 jobs and put two buildings in Abingdon up for sale. Its ten subsidiaries were reorganised into three divisions, with new managing directors.

Another subsidiary, Oxford-based CL, which makes products for electron microscopes, was sold for more than £2m to American company Roper Industries.