UK private equity firm Permira has emerged as a backer for Irish entrepreneur Denis O'Brien's bid for Meteor in a deal that could value Ireland's third-largest mobile telecoms operator at up to €500m ($605m).

A purchase of Meteor would see O'Brien return to an Irish mobile telecoms market he vacated in 2000 when he sold Esat Digifone to British Telecom and Norwegian national carrier Telenor. BT ended up paying €2.65bn to take full control of that company in February 2001.