TEESPORT owner PD Ports last night confirmed it had received a takeover approach.

Although the company declined to name its mystery suitor, The Northern Echo understands it is Australian investment bank Macquarie, which has built up a range of transport assets in the UK, and recently said it was interested in taking over the London Stock Exchange.

A takeover could provide the funding for a £300m expansion plan at Teesport, which is expected to bring up to 7,000 jobs to the region.

An Australian financial newspaper reported the takeover approach early yesterday and PD Ports put out a statement confirming it had received a preliminary approach.

The statement said: "This approach is of a preliminary nature and there is no certainty that it will result in an offer."

It is expected to confirm who has made the offer within days.

PD is understood to have caught the eye of a buyer after its intense lobbying to ask the Government to allow its expansion to go ahead, rather than expand southern ports any further.

The company wants to build a deep-sea container terminal at Teesport to bring in freight direct from the Far East instead of goods being shipped to southern ports and sent to the North by lorry.

After a vote of confidence last month from Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, which announced it was opening a £20m Asda import centre on the Tees, PD Ports is even more attractive to buyers.

Asda will ship about 70 per cent of its non-food goods in through the Tees, including products such as George clothing and televisions, to help cut costs.

Anthony Platts, of Tees Valley investment managers Wise Speke, said: "If taken over, PD Ports would certainly be in a better financial position to raise the sort of money a deep-sea container terminal would cost.

"It is a good business in any case, and when Asda confirmed they were putting a big terminal in, clearly this bidder has seen the massive potential of PD Ports."

Mr Platts said the move was a vote of confidence in PD Ports and in the deep-sea container terminal plan.

Since revealing the plans for Teesport's expansion earlier this year, The Northern Echo has been backing the £300m terminal through its Support Our Port campaign.

Shares in PD Ports rose by up to 16p yesterday after the confirmation of an approach, valuing the Middlesbrough-based company at about £220m.

In comparison, AB Ports, which owns Grimsby, Immingham and Hull ports, has a market capitalisation of more than £1.5bn while Forth Ports, the owner of Rosyth and Tilbury, is valued at £569m.

As well as PD Teesport at Tees and Hartlepool, PD Ports runs a port services arm with operations in warehousing, distribution and freight forwarding from several UK locations.

There is also PD Truck & Van, a Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles dealer operating as H&L Garages in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

PD Ports floated on the stock market in July last year after Japanese group Nikko sold the business that it had acquired as part of a £507m takeover of Powell Duffryn in 2000.