Hopes of a bidding war for British Energy were dealt a blow on Wednesday after it emerged that Vattenfall, Suez and Eon were not planning to bid for the UK nuclear group.

This leaves RWE and EDF as the most likely companies to bid for the UK government’s 35 per cent stake in British Energy before the deadline of next Friday, May 9. Buying this stake could trigger a full takeover of the company, which at Wednesday’s closing price of 760p, down 8p, had an equity value of roughly £12.2bn.