Apollo, the American private equity group, is understood to have approached Barratt Developments to offer to buy a stake in the troubled UK housebuilder, The Times has learnt.

The US firm, which specialises in making investments in distressed companies and has a large European real estate fund, is believed to have offered to inject between £300 million and £400 million into Barratt at a small premium to the current share price.

Barratt, which is understood to have rejected the offer, had a market value of about £933.5 million on Friday, when the shares closed down ½p at 269¼p. A year ago the shares were trading at £11.26, but the group, like many of its rivals, has been badly hit by the credit crunch and the rapid slowdown in the housing market.

In recent weeks several analysts have said they believe that Barratt will have to conduct an emergency rights issue to raise cash as the pressure of its debt burden – exacerbated by a flurry of acquisitions in the merger boom – takes its toll. It has about £1.7 billion of debt, of which about £800 million needs refinancing by next April.

Barratt is trying to reduce its debt pile through the sale of Wilson Bowden Developments, a division of the UK homebuilder it acquired last year for £2.2 billion. It has also put a virtual moratorium on new land buying. But analysts have said that its efforts may not be enough. “I would put no better than a 50 per cent chance of Barratt trading through without new equity – and that will surely involve a sizeable cut to the dividend, too,” Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander wrote in a note to clients last month.

Barratt’s problems echo the turmoil of the housing sector. Last month Persimmon, the country’s biggest housebuilder, said that it would stop building on new sites until conditions improved, and there has been speculation of defensive mergers, such as a tie-up between Redrow and Bellway.

The approach from Apollo, however, could signal that the US group believes that the bottom of the market has been reached. By offering to acquire slightly less than a third of Barratt, Apollo does not have to launch an offer for the whole company. It can also pay for the stake using cash, as opposed to borrowing money from the banks, which are unwilling to lend.

Apollo signalled its appetite for undervalued assets when it struck a deal last month to acquire about $12 billion (£6.1 billion) of leveraged loans from Citigroup as part of consortium of buyout firms.

It has experience of the UK property market after acquiring Countrywide, the estate agents, last year.

A spokesman for Barratt said last night that the company did not comment on market rumour.

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