Broomer believes she is one of only a handful of specialists who deal full-time in relics and reliquaries (vessels that contain relics), though Christie's and other auction houses offer them for sale occasionally.

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Its competitors are unable to offer 4G until the conclusion of a spectrum auction scheduled for early next year.

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The whole point of the auction was to find out what the highest bidders would offer for the assets: not very much, it would seem.

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All that said, the banks that regard themselves as strongest have a particular incentive to resist pressure from the Bank of England and the Treasury not to take too much of the money on offer in tomorrow's auction and in the so-called Funding for Lending scheme that will be launched next month.

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The base at Neatishead, near Wroxham, was put back on offer on the site last month after having failed to sell the first time it was put up for auction.

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Consummation of the transaction with Brother is subject to court approval and a marketing period in which Kodak may seek to obtain a higher or better offer for the business, alone or in combination with other businesses, including through a court-approved auction.

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Demand for Italian government bonsd during a recent auction dropped to 1.47 times the amount on offer, from 1.57 times last month.

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The credit rating agency referenced the December 3 offer by the Greek government to private investors to participate in a Dutch auction to exchange their sovereign bonds for short-term paper issued by the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).

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