A story in the Telegraph say Hit's owner Apax, having originally looked to break up the company and sell off its biggest properties, is now hopeful of selling the operation as a whole following interest from the aforementioned Disney, Mattel, Hasbro and Viacom.

Any purchase of the firm is likely to cost around $1.5bn

The toy speculation centres around interest in having a presence on television, with Hasbro recently launching its own channel, the Hub. Hit also owns a 30 per cent stake in digital cable television channel PBS Sprout, which could prove attractive to bidders.

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