Dubai International Capital's (DIC) £400 million takeover bid for Liverpool is on hold after sources close to Tom Hicks, the club's co-owner, said that the Texan millionaire did not want to sell his 50 per cent stake in the club. The offer, however, remains on the table while Hicks considers his options.

Hicks believes that the bid from the private-equity investment arm of the Dubai government underestimated the value of his stake. The Texan has first option of the shares owned by his co-chairman, George Gillett Jr, who is keen to offload his half of the club.

A considerable stumbling block to the progression of any deal with DIC has been the Americans' valuation of the club.

Sameer al-Ansari, the DIC chief executive and a lifelong Liverpool fan, said this morning that investment talks had been ongoing but were being held up by one of Hicks or Gillett.

"It's no secret that we have been in discussions with the current owners," al-Ansari said. "It's not easy because the owners are in dreamland about valuations at the moment."

Al-Ansari later clarified that one of the club's owners "had come out of dreamland", without giving further details.

Newspaper reports that DIC had issued the Americans with a deadline of midnight tonight to accept the offer were denied by a spokesperson for the private equity investment arm of the Dubai Government.

Jehad Saleh, a company spokesperson operating out of Dubai, said: "No figures have been [publicly] mentioned, and talks are ongoing. No timeline has been set on the talks.”

Saleh is not at the centre of the team driving the bid, however, which is operating out of London.

DIC made its bid to buy out Hicks and Gillett last Wednesday. The bid was made by Amanda Staveley, a senior partner at PCP, a private equity firm, who once briefly dated Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.

It emerged last night that Staveley has been acting as an adviser to DIC since it renewed its bid to buy Liverpool, reporting directly to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, and she will be given an influential position in the Anfield boardroom, overseeing the day-to-day running of the club, if a bid is successful.

There were claims from Dallas last night that Hicks is ready to exercise his option to buy out Gillett’s stake and to assume sole ownership of Liverpool. It had been thought that, to do so, Hicks would have to secure an off-market placement of his shares in Hicks Sports Group, which includes his investments in the Texas Rangers baseball team and the Dallas Stars ice hockey franchise.

Read more from Oliver Kay in his morning report.