Macquarie Bank, (owner of Macquarie Regional Radio Group), which has been applying for local radio licenses in the UK over the past year, has indicated it’s interested in a number of the GCAP radio stations that are listed for sale.

GCap Media, the UK’s largest commercial radio broadcaster, has received at least half a dozen offers for the nine local stations it has put up for sale. These include Classic FM and London’s Capital FM.

The network hopes to close the auction, which it is running without investment bankers, in the latter half of January.

Other parties showing keen interest in the stations are Ulster Television, owner of the TalkSport station and the Local Radio Company.

The station disposals were announced by GCap in November as part of an overhaul of the group, created by the merger of GWR and Capital Radio Group in May. It will distribute proceeds from the sale to shareholders via a special dividend.

Richard Menzies-Gow, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, said the GCap stations could be sold for about £75m, implying an earnings-multiple of up to 15 times. Altogether, the nine stations are expected to post annual earnings before interest, tax and amortisation of £5m in the current financial year, on revenues of £12m.

Macquarie has been applying for local radio licenses in the UK over the past year. The company, Macquarie Regional Radio Group, was formed when DMG sold the bulk of their regional radio stations to Macquarie Bank.