China Resouces placed its own bid to acquire ParknShop, said the group's Chief Financial Officer Frank Lai. ParknShop recieved seven bids that were within the range of USD 3 billion to USD 4 billion, said sources with knowledge of the process.

ParknShop, the industrial conglomerate, had almost a 40% share in the market in Hong Kong, said a market research group, AC Nielsen.  Its closest competition was Wellcome with 33% of the market. Vanguard, China Resources own business, ranked third with only 7% shares of the market.

Other bidders for the chain of stores were Blackstone, TPG and Japan's Aeon supermarkets, according to sources with familiar with the process. Korea's Lotte also placed its bid, while SunArt of China and Australia's Woolworths had shown interest in the deal.

Mr Lai said that his group might bid for ParknShop with Tesco, according to Bloomberg's report. However, this was later clarified by the group saying that the joint venture and the bid were entirely separate.

The supermarket chain earned revenues of almost HK 22 billion in 2012. It currently has 270 stores in Hong Kong, another 56 in China and about 20 in Macau.