The company which prints banknotes for the Bank of England is on the brink of an historic takeover that would see it owned by private equity investors for the first time since it was founded 212 years ago.

Sky News has learnt that Atlas Holdings, a US-based buyout firm, is in advanced talks about a 130p-a-share offer for De La Rue.

The London-listed company’s leading investors are understood to have been asked to provide irrevocable undertakings to accept the offer, with one shareholder saying that a deal recommended by De La Rue’s board was likely to be announced as early as Tuesday morning.

If completed, a takeover deal would end nearly 80 years of De La Rue’s status as a London Stock Exchange-listed business, having made its public company debut in 1947.

Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, Atlas Holdings focuses on acquiring companies in sectors such as industrials, trading and energy.

Among the businesses it owns in Europe are London-based graphic and creative services agency ASG and Bovis, a British construction services group.

Banking sources said the 130p-a-share offer for De La Rue would represent a robust premium to a price which sank below 50p in mid-2023, but which has since recovered to close at 112p on Monday evening.

Atlas Holdings is understood to have drafted in bankers from Lazard to advise it, while De La Rue is being advised by Deutsche Numis.

The offer from Atlas Holdings does not include De La Rue’s authentication division, which is being sold to US-listed Crane NXT in a £300m transaction which took a further step towards completion last week.

The proceeds from that deal have been earmarked to repay loans and reduce its pension scheme deficit.

De La Rue’s currency arm prints money for a large number of central banks around the world, including in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe.

It has printing sites in the UK, Kenya, Malta and Sri Lanka.

In 2020, the Bank of England announced that it had extended De La Rue’s contract from the end of 2025 until 2028.

At the time, there were 4.4bn Bank of England notes in circulation with a collective value of about £82bn.

De La Rue has been running a formal sale process under Takeover Panel rules, with a string of parties said to have expressed an interest in it since the period began late last year.

Among its potential suitors has been Edi Truell, the prominent City financier and pensions entrepreneur, who tabled a 125p-a-share proposal in January.

De La Rue’s directors have been exploring options in recent months to maximise value for long-suffering shareholders, including a standalone sale of the currency-printing business or other proposals to acquire the entire company.

The group’s balance sheet has been under strain for years, with doubts at one point about whether it could stave off insolvency.

After being beset by a series of corporate mishaps, including a string of profit warnings, a public row with its auditor and challenges in its operations in countries including India and Kenya, it was forced to seek breathing space from pension trustees by deferring tens of millions of pounds of payments into its retirement scheme.

Soon after that, the company parachuted in Clive Whiley, a seasoned corporate troubleshooter, as chairman, with a mandate to repair its battered finances.

Since then, its stock has recovered strongly, and is up 37% over the last year.

De La Rue traces its roots back to 1813, when Thomas De La Rue established a printing business.

Eight years later, he began producing straw hats and then moved into printing stationery, according to an official history of the company.

Its first paper money was produced for the government of Mauritius in 1860, and in 1914 it began printing 10-shilling notes for the UK government on the outbreak of the First World War.

De la Rue has been contacted for comment, while Atlas Holdings could not be reached for comment on Monday evening.

A payments company backed by Nick Candy, the Reform UK treasurer, will this week announce a tie-up with a London-based peer amid a rapidly shifting industry landscape.

Sky News has learnt that VibePay, in which Candy Ventures is the largest shareholder, has agreed a deal to sell itself to Banked, a so-called ‘pay by bank’ platform.

The all-share deal, which is expected to be announced on Tuesday, will see Mr Candy’s investment vehicle holding a stake of roughly 25% in the combined group, according to insiders.

One source said the deal would value the enlarged company at in excess of $100m.

As part of the transaction, the VibePay founder, Luke Massie, and Candy Ventures director Steven Smith will join the board of Banked.

VibePay specialises in ‘conversational commerce’, providing personalised offers and peer-to-peer payments to its users, connecting them to brands, sellers and banks.

People close to the deal said that the takeover would help address a market opportunity by rewarding debit customers who have been overlooked by credit card operators, with debit card payments making up nearly 90% of all UK card payments but representing just a tiny fraction of payment rewards.

Banked counts global financial giants including Bank of America, Citi, FIS and NAB among its strategic investors and partners.

It has previously raised more than $60m in funding, while VibePay has raised over $10m from its backers.

The deal is understood to be awaiting approval from the City regulator.

In response to an enquiry from Sky News, Mr Candy said: “I’ve been a strong supporter of VibePay, and I’m excited about the future with Banked.

“The global vision of the Banked founders is truly inspiring, and I see immense potential in the combined vision for the next generation of payments.

“This is a positive moment for the UK technology sector, with two British companies coming together to drive forward a global ambition.

“I’m proud to be a part of this journey and am eager to champion this story both in the UK and internationally.”

Mr Massie added: “We’ve spent years building technology that genuinely connects people – not just for transactions, but for experiences.

“By joining forces with Banked, we now have the infrastructure, global reach, and merchant access to supercharge what we’ve built, and deliver real value to consumers at scale.”

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Banked bought Waave, an Australian pay-by-bank provider, last October, strengthening its international presence, while it has a partnership with NAB – one of Australia’s biggest lenders – to offer a service to Amazon customers in the country.

“The real value in Pay by Bank goes beyond cheap and secure payments; it’s in making spending work for everyone,” said Brad Goodall, Banked’s chief executive.

“The combination of Banked and VibePay will drive Pay by Bank adoption through innovative consumer incentives – on par with credit cards – and empower merchants with deep data insights to drive acquisition and retention like never before.

The companies declined to comment formally on the value of the acquisition or the valuation of the combined entity.

Last-minute efforts to keep British Steel operating are to be carried out today, as the plant races to secure a supply of raw materials.

The Department for Business and Trade said officials are working to secure supplies of materials, including coking coal, to keep British Steel operational, as well as to ensure all staff at the Scunthorpe site will be paid.

It added that setting up new supply chains was “crucial” as a fall in blast furnace temperature could risk “irreparable damage to the site, with the steel setting and scarring the machinery”.

Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray told Sky News the raw materials are “in the UK” and “nearby” the Lincolnshire site.

“There are limits to what I can say because there are commercial operations going on here, but what we need to do and what we are doing is making sure we get those raw materials into the blast furnaces to keep them going,” he said.

Companies including Tata – which ran the now-closed Port Talbot steelworks – and Rainham Steel have offered managerial support and materials to keep the Lincolnshire site running.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in a statement that “when I said steelmaking has a future in the UK, I meant it”.

“Steel is vital for our national security and our ambitious plans for the housing, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors in the UK,” he added.

“We will set out a long-term plan to co-invest with the private sector to ensure steel in the UK has a bright and sustainable future.”

Earlier this month, unions said the steelwork’s owner, Chinese company Jingye, decided to cancel future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.

It meant the Scunthorpe plant had been on course to close down by May, bit it sparked urgent calls for government intervention.

Emergency legislation was passed on Saturday bringing the steelworks into effective government control, and officials were on site as soon as the new legislation came into force.

However, the business secretary has warned that does not mean the plant is guaranteed to survive.

Appearing on Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Mr Reynolds also said he would not bring a Chinese company into the “sensitive” steel sector again.

“I don’t know… the Boris Johnson government when they did this, what exactly the situation was,” he added. “But I think it’s a sensitive area.”

Jingye stepped in with a deal to buy British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant out of insolvency in 2020, when Mr Johnson was prime minister.

The minister added that while The Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill stops short of the full nationalisation of British Steel, “to be frank, as I said to parliament yesterday, it is perhaps at this stage the likely option”.

The Conservatives accused the government of acting “too late” and implementing a “botched nationalisation” after ignoring warnings about the risk to the steelworks.

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Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “The Labour Government have landed themselves in a steel crisis entirely of their own making.

“They’ve made poor decisions and let the unions dictate their actions.”