The race is on to take control of NTL
These include a joint bid from Dublin-based broadcaster Setanta and New York investment bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS).
But this faces competition from media giant UGC, the owner of southern-based TV operator Chorus, the former Irish Multichannel, as well as a consortium headed by Kerry-born John Riordan, who once ran UGC's European cable businesses.
A fourth grouping, which included businessman Denis O'Brien, is understood to have looked at NTL but withdrew from the race in recent weeks.
The UGC bid will face extra complications if successful. A UGC takeover would trigger alarm bells with the Competition Authority, the state competition watchdog whose clearance would be required before the deal could go through.
The authority may have difficulty in swallowing the prospect of Ireland's two main cable TV companies amalgamating.
Prospective buyers face a price tag of between €250 million and €300 million, but they will also need a further €100 million to cover the cost of investing in NTL's cable network, which suffered in recent years thanks to a cash crunch that resulted in its British parent filing for bankruptcy.
The final price tag will be less than half the €680 million handed over by NTL in 1999 when it took over the then Cablelink, which was previously owned by RTE and Eircom.
The business became less attractive after the market turned on technology-related stocks in 2000 and slashed valuations of businesses operating in the telecom and media sectors.
NTL's Irish business has also had to cope with strong competition from TV platforms such as Sky, which has signed up around one in four Irish households using competing technology that is not restricted to NTL's limited catchment area. NTL's attempts to establish itself as a provider of phone services also suffered poor take-up.
The phone offering struggled to attract more than 2,000 subscribers and was eventually withdrawn last year.
