Cosworth then went through a number of ownership changes. After Duckworth decided he did not want to be involved with the day-to-day business of running a growing company, he sold out the ownership to United Engineering Industries (UEI) in 1980, retaining his life presidency and day-to-day technical involvement with Cosworth, and becoming a UEI board director; UEI was a group of small- to medium-sized technology companies, which was taken over by Carlton Communications in 1988 – Carlton was primarily interested in some of the audio-visual companies in the UEI portfolio, and Cosworth was a poor fit with these; a new buyer for the company in the engineering/automotive sector was sought, and the traditional engineering company Vickers plc bought Cosworth in 1990.