Crest Nicholson was on Thursday poised to become the latest UK housebuilder to be taken over, after its board recommended an offer that values the group at £715m.

The offer from HBOS and Sir Tom Hunter, the Scottish entrepreneur, was priced at 629.7p a share and was made up of 620p in cash and a 9.7p interim dividend declared by Crest.

The offer price represents an 8 per cent premium to an earlier bid of 585p and a 10.2 per cent premium to the closing share price on November 9, the day before Crest said it had received a bid.

Crest said on Wednesday that talks with the consortium, called Castle Bidco, were close to being finalised after the Takeover Panel extended the takeover deadline by a day.

The deal represents the latest bout of consolidation in the housebuilding sector which has seen the number of operators shrink from about 30 to 10 in the last decade as land has become scarcer and approvals for projects rarer.

In January, Barratt Developments beat a number of rivals, including HBOS and Sir Tom, to secure the £2.2bn approval of Wilson Bowden in the biggest deal to date in the sector. Last month Galliford Try bought smaller rival Linden Homes for £108.5m and Ben Bailey, the Yorkshire based housebuilder, hoisted the “For Sale” sign above its operations.

The likely takeover of Crest represents the end of a long-running attempt by the company to retain its independence that started back in 2005, when it saw off the unwanted attentions of Heron Corporation, the property group controlled by Gerald Ronson.

The board of Crest said it unanimously recommended the latest offer from HBOS, which already owns 27 per cent of the housebuilder, and Sir Tom.

Shares in Crest, which were trading below 475p a year ago, rose 3½p to 613½p at the open in London.