It has also emerged that St Modwen, the property developer that owns the MG Rover Longbridge site, has expressed interest in some of UK Coal’s properties and has made a formal bid on at least one site.

Mr Moulton is said to be annoyed that UK Coal put out a statement to the Stock Exchange saying that tentative takeover talks had ended. The leader of the venture capital group, who famously lost the battle for Rover in 2000, has complained that not enough information was made available.

He intends to pursue the information from Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, UK Coal’s financial adviser, shortly. Alchemy has the backing of several property investors, although it is not clear if one of these is St Modwen.

UK Coal said yesterday that it had not received a written approach from Alchemy, but knew that it was involved in the move. It said that it had asked for further clarification, but that this was not forthcoming. It could not offer further information until its questions had been answered. Shares in the mining group, which has just eight deep mines left, closed up 6p at 128.5p.

Much of UK Coal’s value is tied up in its property portfolio, which includes the land around many former mines.

Alchemy’s only connection with mining is through ATH Resources, an opencast mining operation that it bought into in 1998, and then made a partial exit from last year.

Is it deal or no deal?

LAST year Alchemy threw a party to celebrate returns of £1 billion to its small band of shareholders since the company was created in 1997 (Christine Buckley writes).

However, the group is also becoming famous for deals that it does not do. The biggest non-deal was, of course, Rover five years ago. After Rover’s demise this spring, Alchemy looked at buying the MG brand, but was deterred by several factors. Now it is becoming frustrated as it is held at bay by UK Coal, which was born out of the remnants of the former state-owned British Coal.

About £800 million of Alchemy’s £1 billion returns were secured last year as the venture capital group exited a number of large projects begun several years previously.

It has been less active in terms of asset acquisition recently. Over the past two years, it has spent about £120 million on a handful of projects. A spokesman said that the group is counter-cyclical and has been deterred by prices in a heady market.

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