DCC’s shares inched higher on Wednesday on talk that US private equity groups Energy Capital Partners and KKR have submitted a fresh bid for the former conglomerate in advance of a bid deadline that was set after their previous £4.95 billion (€5.74 billion) proposal was rejected in April. Energy Capital and KKR have submitted a revised offer for the Irish-based, but London-listed company, Sky News City editor Mark Kleinman posted on X, the social media group, without giving further details. Shares in DCC rose as much as 1.2 per cent to £60.70. A spokeswoman for DCC declined to comment on Wednesday, hours before the deadline. While the US consortium’s £58 per share offer was rejected by DCC at the end of April as “fundamentally” undervaluing the company, it has been reported in recent weeks that the firms are working on sweetening their offer in advance of a “put up or shut up” deadline of 5pm on Wednesday that was set by the Irish Takeover Panel. Such deadlines are imposed to avoid a listed company being the subject of a protracted takeover situation. “We await further information at this stage,” said Cantor Fitzgerald analysts in a note to clients, commenting on the latest report. Energy Capital is a specialist investor in the energy transition, specialising in electricity and sustainable infrastructure. KKR is one of the most storied New York investment groups – set up in 1976, the same year that DCC was founded, as Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts – that pioneered the debt-fuelled corporate buyout industry.The approach in April followed years of underperformance by the stock relative to target prices set by analysts, leaving the company among the smallest on the FTSE 100 by market value earlier this year.DCC, whose businesses once spanned Robert Roberts tea and coffee to waste management, decided in late 2024 to abandon its conglomerate roots by putting its then healthcare division on the market and signalling a strategic review of its technology unit that would also eventually lead to it also being put up for sale.DCC sold its healthcare unit a year ago to private equity fund-owned HealthCo Investment for an enterprise value of £1.05 billion. It also offloaded part of its technology business, with the remainder of that division currently on the market.Chief executive, Donal Murphy and his team have long held that the energy business and related opportunity in energy transition presents the largest growth opportunity, at strong returns, available to the group.