Anglo Irish Bank has refused to comment on property-industry speculation that it is one of the investors interested in buying the Sandyford land owned by Tivway, the John Fleming Group company that was placed into examinership last week.

Anglo Irish Bank is Tivway's biggest creditor and is owed nearly €270m by the company. The examiner was appointed after ACC, which is owned by Dutch group Rabobank, tried to appoint a receiver to the company to recover loans of €21.5m.

Tivway owns a partially completed 14-storey office building in Sandyford which is said to be worth between €500,000 and €1m in its current condition.

The High Court heard last night investors had offered an undisclosed sum to Tivway. One property-development source said that if Anglo bought into the site it would mean the bank would not be forced to write down the rest of its development loan book by levels comparable with the slump in Tivway's value.

Meanwhile, a separate company in the John Fleming Group, which owes more than €1bn to banks, has been given the go-ahead for a discount food store next to Tivway's lands in south Dublin. ACC is owed more than €21.5m by Tivway and state-owned Anglo is owed €268m.

Despite being given the go-ahead for the development by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, the local authority said "no justification has been provided as to why a discount food store of this scale needs to be provided within the Sandyford Business Estate".