The planned £2 billion sale of Somerfield, the supermarket chain, could be dropped after it emerged last night that only one bid had been tabled by a deadline at the end of last week.

It is understood that the Coop was the sole retailer to table a full proposal for the business part-owned by Robert Tchenguiz, the property tycoon, ahead of a March 14 cut-off date.

Asda has yet to make an offer, despite the fact that it is believed to have triggered the process by sounding out Somerfield’s owners about a prospective deal last year.

One source close to Somerfield said: “They’re a little bit uncertain about what Asda’s intentions are. If they don’t get the price they want, they will hold on.”

Andy Bond, Asda’s chief executive, refused to comment when asked about his group’s intentions yesterday.

There has been mounting speculation that the auction could be derailed given the crisis on the global financial markets and the price sought by Somerfield’s owners, which includes Apax, the private equity group.

One banking insider yesterday compared the sale with last year’s attempted £2billion auction of New Look, the privately held clothing retailer, which was scrapped last summer when buyers walked away as the credit crunch began to bite.

He told The Times: “The price put on Somerfield is a bit high. There is a touch of the New Looks about it.”

The Apax-led consortium bought Somerfield in 2005 for £1.1 billion. A decision to postpone the sale would be a further blow to Mr Tchenguiz, who is nursing losses on his stakes in Mitchells & Butlers and J Sainsbury.

Asda is understood to be interested only in the larger sites within Somerfield’s 955-store portfolio to close the gap on Tesco. Somerfield’s owners want to sell the business only as a whole. Speculation has grown in recent weeks that Asda has been courting potential partners for a carve-up of the business. Somerfield’s estate includes 600 convenience stores, but Asda has insisted that it is not interested in entering that market.

All leading retailers bar Tesco initially expressed an interest in the business when it appointed Citigroup to handle the sale late last year, including Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison.

A Coop spokesman refused to comment. The mutually owned Coop runs more than 2,200 convenience stores and supermarkets across the UK, generating more than £4 billion of revenue.

Peter Marks, its chief executive, considered a bid for Somerfield three years ago when in charge of United Cooperatives, which is now part of the wider Coop group.

At the time Mr Marks said: “We are taking a look at Somerfield because we believe a combination of our businesses could make sound commercial operational and financial sense.”

Somerfield controls less than 4 per cent of the grocery market. There have been signs of long overdue turnaround at the group, with Paul Mason, chief executive, claiming that the company had enjoyed an “exceptional” Christmas. It posted pretax profits of £26.4 million for the year to April 28, against a loss of £118.1 million the year before.

The timing of the auction caught many by surprise, given that the Competition Commission is investigating the £130 billion supermarket sector and is due to publish its report next month.

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