Around half of the bid could be debt funded with the consortium partners putting in hundreds of millions of equity between them. A source said: “The primary goal is to make sure that Teesworks [the STDC] acquires the majority of the shares in PD Ports, with other consortium partners taking part in that.”

It is understood other major infrastructure investors and property firms have also run the rule over PD Ports since the sales process restarted, including Australian asset manager Macquarie, the Queensland Investment Corporation and UK firm Peel Holdings.

But potential bidders have also raised concerns over a legal dispute between the STDC and PD Ports over access rights to Teesport, which is surrounded by the corporation’s land.

The corporation has gone to court in a bid to confirm that PD Ports has just a single point of access, posing a risk to the business as the regeneration project gathers pace and construction begins elsewhere on the site. Sources said rivals would be reluctant to launch their own independent bids without an agreement over access rights from the STDC. 

The new bid backing team comes after the end of discussions with Abu Dhabi based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala over funding a potential bid for the port.

Mubadala is close to finalising a £5bn investment pot with the Government in sectors including technology, clean energy and life sciences, but the bid source said: “None of it is including any sort of pod infrastructure or port deals, so they’ve just decided that that’s not something that they want to include in the portfolio of that investment fund.”

Sources added Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who held talks with Mr Johnson last December over increasing investment, is set to return to Britain in mid-September to finalise the £5bn fund although the Department for International Trade declined to comment. 

The STDC and the mayor’s office declined to comment.