Alistair Darling, UK chancellor, is hoping Northern Rock’s future can be decided within weeks, as his officials encourage the troubled bank to look beyond Virgin, its preferred bidder, at rival offers. The chancellor expects a bidding war to break out in coming days, which he believes will help secure the best outcome for the taxpayer, currently backing loans of more than £22bn to the bank. Last week the contest seemed over after Northern Rock selected a consortium led by Virgin as preferred bidder. But the stakes were raised when it emerged that Cerberus, the private equity group, submitted a revised proposal on Friday, as did private equity group JC Flowers. It is understood Mr Darling now deems the revised JC Flowers offer an “approved bid”, because it meets the Treasury’s goal to recover the huge public loan advanced to Northern Rock. The Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, reported that Deutsche Bank is threatening to abandon plans to back Virgin’s bid for Northern Rock.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 5:52 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A, People, Private equity. Tagged with cerberus, jc flowers, northern rock, virgin. Edit this entry.