Severn Trent rejected on Friday evening a third, improved, takeover proposal from the LongRiver consortium seeking to take the water firm private in a £5.3bn deal. Chairman Andrew Duff noted that the consortium had proposed an offer at £22-a-share - only 3.5% up on a proposal that had been turned down earlier in the week.

The rejection of the approach left the consortium with little time to regroup and consider its options before a Takeover Panel (Britain's mergers and acquisitions regulator) deadline of 5pm today, Tuesday. Unless a new bid has been made by then, LongRiver will be barred from returning with revised proposals for six months.

Although, some major shareholders have urged the company to open negotiations with the consortium in an attempt to elicit a higher offer than the 22 British pounds per share, the bidders seemed discouraged to make any further proposal due to the distant approach of Severn Trent's management.

"In the absence of any such engagement, there will be no further proposal from the consortium and no offer for Severn Trent shareholders to consider," Michael Rolland, President and CEO of Borealis, said on behalf of LongRiver on Monday.

The LongRiver consortium includes Borealis Infrastructure, the Kuwait Investment Office and the British Universities Superannuation Scheme.

Severn Trent, which is listed on the FTSE 100, is the biggest publicly traded English water company, serving more than seven million people. The value of the company in the stock market is around £5 billion.