A bid for Irish Continental Group (ICG) from a consortium led by Philip Lynch is expected to emerge next week.

The consortium comprising One51 Capital, which Lynch heads, and the Doyle Group, a family-owned, ports-related business in Cork, issued a statement to the Irish Stock Exchange yesterday saying "progress continues to be made" on the due diligence process that began on April 13th.

It said a further update on its progress would be made next week. "The consortium remains fully committed to expediting the process towards a possible offer to acquire the share capital of Irish Continental Group at a price of not less than €20.75 per ICG unit," the statement said.

Sources close to the process said the due diligence phase was likely to conclude early next week. There were just "one or two small items" that remained to be clarified, the source added.

Independent directors of Irish Continental had originally granted the consortium four weeks from April 13th to conclude its due diligence of the ferry company. This deadline passed yesterday but has been extended until next week.

It is understood Mr Lynch's consortium is close to securing bank funding for its proposed bid. Final stage discussions with two banks are believed to be taking place.

Irish Continental is currently valued on the Irish Stock Exchange at €493 million. A management-led buyout proposal headed by ICG chief executive Eamonn Rothwell offered €18.50 per share on March 8th.

That offer, made by a company called Aella, amounted to €471 million for existing stock and share options to be exercised by management. Aella's bid is being funded by AIB.

It is understood that the One51/Doyle consortium has received nearly all of the detailed financial information that was sought from ICG and the independent directors.

The two sides were in dispute on this point in late April with the consortium claiming that certain information was not being made available to the group. This claim was rejected by the independent directors, who are being advised by NCB Corporate Finance. Relations between the two sides are believed to have improved significantly since then.

ICG's share price increased by 10 cent in Dublin yesterday to close at €21. At the time of the bid by Aella, ICG's shares were trading on the Irish stock market at €15.60.