Four additional bidders submitted their intent to offers for Grohe, Europe's lagest bathroom equipment maker. Bidders are Japan's Lixil, Swiss rival Geberit, Brazil's Duratex and U.S.-based manufacturer Fortune Brands. Currently, Grohe received 6 bids in total. Siam Cement of Thailand announced that they were no longer interested in the bidding. Analysts are saying that the Grohe sale could be a stretch for the bidders. Fortune has a market capitalization of US$6.8 billion; Duratex is tagged at US$3.7 billion and Lixil at US$7.5 billion.

Grohe's sale is estimated at EUR4 billion or US$5 billion. Amount included the company's equity and debt. The sale is tagged as the largest European private equity sale for the year, topping the BC Partners acquisition of the German publisher Springer Science and the CVC purchase for the German energy-metering firm Ista.

TPG Capital, Grohe's owners, and a private equity arm of Credit Suisse, are the runners for the dual-track process for the proposed stock market listing scheduled in autumn.

A Duratex spokeswoman commented, "The company has no knowledge and there is no information on this subject."