The British leisure group, Waterfall Holdings, has made a hostile bid for European Leisure - which is listed in Dublin - based on 115p sterling (€1.69) per share.

It is offering 203.5 Waterfall shares for every 100 European Leisure shares, and says this represents a premium of 71 per cent over European Leisure's closing price on February 22.

European Leisure has already rejected an offer from Waterfall and is instead backing a rival bid from Allied Leisure. Waterfall will now attempt to discuss the bid with institutional investors, among them Bank of Ireland and AIB.