THIRTY bidders, including the private equity giant Permira and wealthy Middle Eastern investors, are lining up in the £1 billion bidding battle for Aston Martin, the luxury British carmaker, put up for sale by Ford this year.

UBS, the investment bank handling the sale of the marque made popular by James Bond, is believed to have sent out about 30 initial information memorandums to interested parties at the end of last week with a view to securing initial bids by the beginning of next month.

Ford is hoping to tie up a sale of Aston Martin, which makes about 7,500 cars a year, by next spring. Other interested parties are thought to include Texas Pacific Group, the American buyout company, and Alchemy Partners, run by Jon Moulton and Jac Nasser, the former chief executive of Ford, who is now a partner at One Equity, JPMorgan’s private equity arm.

Wealthy individuals and trade buyers from the Middle East are also understood to be interested. This month Bernard Arnault and Albert Frère, two of Europe’s most prominent billionaires, emerged as contenders for Aston Martin. M Arnault, the richest man in France, is chairman, chief executive and controlling shareholder of LVMH, the luxury goods multinational that includes the Louis Vuitton and Fendi brands.

One City source said: “There must be about 15 to 20 private equity groups looking at this — there are people crawling all over it.” Valuing Aston Martin is difficult, with estimates ranging wildy from £350 million to £1 billion, but under the stewardship of Ulrich Bez, the chief executive, over the past three years the company has reversed losses to achieve profit margins of more than 10 per cent.

There is said to be a year-long waiting list for its cars, which include the DB9, the exclusive Vanquish S model and the DBS coupe, which is featured in Casino Royale, the new Bond film. The Aston Martin was recently named Britain’s coolest brand by the Coolbrands Council for 2007.

Ford is hoping that someone may be prepared to pay a premium for that brand name, rather than simply valuing the business on its multiple of earnings.

Last month Ford reported its worst quarterly figures for 14 years. Third-quarter losses hit $5.8 billion (£3.1 billion) after restructuring charges of $5.26 billion and weak sales. Last year Ford lost $284 million for the same period.

The company also said that it needed to restate financial results stretching back to 2001 because it had accounted for derivatives trades under the wrong accounting standard. However, it said that the restatement would not have any impact on the company’s cash standing.

Alan Mulally, the Ford leader, who was brought in from Boeing last month to replace Bill Ford as chief executive, said that he would not support the British brands in the future unless they showed signs of improvement.

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