JC Flowers, the private equity group has walked away from the bid auction for Northern Rock, the stricken bank. The US group, which submitted a revised proposal last week, is understood to have sent letters to Northern Rock and to the Treasury Thursday night saying it could not provide a revised offer that would both provide value to shareholders and satisfy government requirements on the sale of Northern Rock. The JC Flowers proposal, which proposed repaying £15bn of Bank of England funding, would have only given shareholders a nominal amount even though their support would be needed to get the bid through. The move leaves a consortium led by Virgin Group as the preferred bidder. Northern Rock is also expected to receive a revised proposal Friday from Olivant, the private equity group run by Luqman Arnold, a former Abbey National CEO.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 5:49 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A, Private equity. Tagged with jc flowers, northern rock. Edit this entry.