After discussions between parties advisers, defence giant told it has until 12 April to make a formal bid

Babcock has until 12 April 2010 to make a firm offer for VT Group, or it will have to walk away from the deal.

The deadline was imposed today following discussions with both parties鈥� advisers. If Babcock declines to make an offer, it will be unable to make a repeat approach for at least six months.

Last month VT turned down an offer of 507.6p a share from the defence giant, which has been trying to create 鈥渁 large and focused international engineering support services company鈥�. At the time VT declined to discuss the proposal.

Now VT is considering putting a bid it made for Mouchel on hold, in favour of returning

拢230m worth of shareholder funds to help alleviate pressure of accepting a potential offer from Babcock, according to a report in the Sunday Times.