Five investment banks have emerged today as backers to the private equity consortium which has bid €7.32bn ($8.8bn) for VNU, the Netherlands media and information business. The group suffered a credit downgrade by Standard & Poor's yesterday taking it to one notch above junk.

Banking sources in London said JP Morgan and ABN Amro are advising the consortium and providing debt finance with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers.