Aussie bank leads £2bn race for Green Investment Bank

The Government’s advisers have spent a month judging the consortium’s bid for the entire company thought to be in the region of the £2 billion.

According to reports, Macquarie’s offer is the largest for the firm founded in 2012 with a mission to bring public and private sector money into environmental projects that might not otherwise get off the ground.

It has since committed £770m of its own capital and secured £3 billion more in partnership for such projects from its HQ at the Atria office development in the heart of the Scottish capital’s financial Exchange district.

The decision to sell-off the bank, which turned its maiden profit of £9.9 million in the last financial year, was announced by former business secretary Sajid Javid in June 2015.

It currently hopes to generate a 10 per cent return on its portfolio of projects.

Its green credentials will be protected after the privatisation by a “golden share” that the Government will hold through a new vehicle, called Green Purposes Company.

The sale has reached the final stages despite difficulties for other privatisations such as the Land Registry, whose sale was dropped last month.

Ministers from the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will now decide whether to maximise the sale price or retain a public stake in the bank.

Macquarie, SDC and the Green Investment Bank declined to comment.

A Government spokesman said: “The sale process is ongoing but it is commercially confidential and we are not commenting on speculation.”