Tony Pidgley walks away from bid for his father's Berkeley Group

Tony K Pidgley was forced to walk away from a planned £1bn bid for Berkeley Group yesterday after being turned down by his father, the housebuilder's founder and chief executive.

The younger Pidgley had to declare his hand on Monday after a newspaper article revealed that he was plotting a bid. Yesterday he put through a call to his father, Tony W Pidgley, and was told the business is not for sale. Pidgley junior said: "He [Tony W Pidgley] said he was not interested in talking to us.... He said he was not interested in considering a discussion along these lines or indeed any lines."

For months, Pidgley junior had been working with advisers Merrill Lynch on a proposal to buy Berkeley, where he was once an executive director and which was founded in 1976 by his father. Pidgley senior was apparently completely unaware of this until he read about it in a newspaper on Saturday.

The older Pidgley, 55, made clear on Monday that he would not countenance any bid at a discount to Berkeley's net asset value. Pidgley junior, who runs a small private housebuilder called Cadenza, said he did not discuss price with his father yesterday. Although he said he would never make a hostile bid, he revealed that, should the offer have gone ahead, he would have replaced his father as group chief executive.

"My father would not have been chief executive in my plan but he would have had a role day to day.... I was seeking to join with the [existing] management team."

Pidgley junior, 34, said he had planned to approach his father once the proposal was finalised but the leak forced him to make an approach earlier. He said "a significant" proportion of the financing was in place. The plan was a debt-funded acquisition of the company by its "first-class" management, which he would join.

A spokesman for Berkeley played down the nature of the talks between father and son. "No formal offer was made, so there was nothing to talk about," he said.

Pidgley junior insisted the episode had not damaged his personal relationship with his father, which they both say is "normal". The son will be going round on Friday night to join in his father's celebrations of the anniversary of his second marriage.