The board of Jurys Doyle has rejected a takeover approach from the Bryan Cullen-led Precinct consortium which valued the company at more than €960 million.

At a board meeting yesterday morning, the directors decided to reject the unsolicited €15.25 per share offer on the basis that it failed "to reflect the value of Jurys Doyle and its prospects".

Precinct, whose offer was pitched at a 26 per cent premium to the Jurys share price before the bid speculation began, said only that it noted the announcement from Jurys and was considering its response.

However, shares in the hotel group closed 2 per cent higher at €14.90 as investors remained optimistic that the consortium, which includes solicitor David Coleman and builder and hotelier JJ Murphy as well as Mr Cullen, would increase its offer or that a rival bid would emerge.

A number of interested groups are believed to be looking at the company, attracted in particular by its Ballsbridge site in the heart of Dublin 4, which is estimated to be worth at least €200 million.

"It's all par for the course," one institutional investor said yesterday. "In any unsolicited bid situation, the bidder won't play their hand upfront while the company is going to play hard to get."

To gain control of Jurys Doyle, any bidder will need to win the support of the three daughters of the late hotelier PV Doyle, who hold nearly 23 per cent of the company between them.

But market sources suggested yesterday that a bid in excess of €16.00, and probably closer to €16.50, would be needed if Ms Bernie Gallaher, Ms Ann Roche and Ms Eileen Monahan were to be persuaded to sell.

At that level, however, analysts believe the upside for a buyer could be limited.

"In terms of the break-up value of the company, I find it hard to stretch beyond the €15.25 level," said Ms Bríd White, analyst with Merrion Stockbrokers.

"I don't know how much bigger an offer you can see given the value of the properties, the tax liability and any redundancy payments you would need to make. It's not leaving an awful lot on the table for whoever would purchase the company."

Any purchaser breaking up the group would be liable for capital gains tax, estimated by one analyst at up to €200 million.

Additionally, analysts remain uncertain as to exactly how much the Ballsbridge site could be worth to a developer while they also find it hard to gauge how much the highly profitable inns business might fetch were it to be hived off and disposed of in a trade sale or market flotation.

For the moment, the Jurys board appears to believe that it can deliver more to shareholders - probably by extracting some of the value from the Ballsbridge site itself while continuing to expand its business - than the €15.25 on offer from Precinct.

"It is very plausible that this will go nowhere," one analyst said. "It has to be a knockout bid and perhaps the maths won't work."