The boards of Tata Steel and CSN will be in rushed meetings to see how far they should go to acquire Corus. Their bankers will be doing their own number crunching. CNBC-TV18 reports on who will have the last word.

31 January 2007 will be a red-letter day in the calendars of Corus, Tata Steel and CSN. If there are competing bids by then, Corus will go the Dutch auction way. The boards of CSN and Tata Steel are busy figuring out just how far they should go. But they are working under the watchful eye of their bankers.

"Although the financiers will have an appetite for leverage, at the end of the day on a non-recourse basis, they would want to see sufficient cash flow coming out of the bid to ensure that the cash flow is repaid," said Ian Gomes, chairman, new and emerging markets group, KPMG.

Repayment is not the only issue. Analysts say that the chinks in Corus'' armour may limit how high the bids go.

"Everybody knows that Corus'' margins are extremely thin, and anybody who is lending to this deal will be aware of the fragility of Corus'' margins and the danger of a market deterioration," comments Robert Jones, steel editor, Metal Bulletin.

"There has to be a tipping point beyond which you can go no further. If the debt is to be serviced out of Corus'' profits, there has to be a limit to the size of that debt. So I don''t really see this bidding going that much higher," said Steve Mackrell, director, operations, Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau.

But just how high will the bids go? That''s the billion-dollar question. The main criterion bankers are expected to be studying is the profitability - the ability to generate future cash flows.

The bidders are doing their math on how far they should go. Behind them, their backers and bankers are doing their math how far they should let them go.