The heavily indebted Macquarie CountryWide Trust yesterday sold five more assets for A$92.6m -- bringing the total asset sale since 2006 to A$1.1bn.

The sale of four Australian supermarkets and a US asset will help reduce Macquarie CountryWide's debt-to-total-asset ratio to 55%.

The trust's chief executive, Stephen Sewell, said: 'Our stated objective is to bring our gearing to around 40% -- a level with which our investors would be comfortable with.'

The Australian