THE multi-billion pound takeover battle for Corus could go to auction if the dispute is not resolved by a newly-imposed deadline, it was announced yesterday.

January 30 has been set for final bids from Brazilian steelmaker CSN and India's Tata Steel, as both compete to become the new owner of the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker.

Corus, which employs more than 3,000 people in the North-East, has been the subject of a dramatic bidding war since October, with both CSN and Tata twice trumping its rival's offer.

The current highest bid is from CSN, with its offer of 515p a share valuing the company in excess of £4.6bn.

But yesterday, Corus said that if the situation is not resolved by the January deadline, the takeover battle would be put to auction.

A decision on Tata's first bid of 455p a share was due to be made at Corus's annual meeting today, but was postponed because of the ongoing bidding battle.

In a statement to shareholders yesterday, Corus said: "If a competitive situation continues to exist shortly before January 30, the Panel Executive may require any revised offers to be published in accordance with an auction procedure."

Michael Rankin, investment manager at Tees Valley investment firm Wise Speke, said the auction process was an unusual step.

"When two companies are making very similar offers, it will usually go to whichever one has made the highest offer - but that doesn't stop a company sending documents out to its shareholders to see who they want to sell their shares to," he said.

"For instance, in the case of Tata, its shareholders accepted the first offer that Tata made, so may feel that as they have already agreed to sell their shares, there is sufficient reason to carry on bidding."

Corus, which was formed when British Steel merged with Dutch rival Hoogovens in 1999, has seen the price of its shares rocket as a result of the takeover speculation, hitting an all-time high of 529.75p last week.

The bidding war started in October when Tata made its first offer of 455p a share, which was countered by CSN's 475p a share offer the next month.

Tata's improved offer of 500p was then again topped by CNS, which came in with a bid of 515p per share.

Rio-based CSN was ranked 48th in last year's list of world steelmakers, with an output of 5.6m tonnes. Tata, part of India's Tata Group which owns nearly 100 companies including Tetley Tea, was ranked 56th with an annual output of 5.3m tonnes.