If everybody thinks a single strong bidder will win, it is hard to encourage others to enter.

A single bidder, unnamed, bid for an exceptionally high proportion of the total volume of three-month bills offered for sale.

Still, France's support for a single bidder is highly unusual for an industrial power.

But rival banks were deterred by its mixture of businesses, which was unattractive to any single bidder.

The G.S.A. had originally planned to award the contract for the vast phone system to a single bidder for a 10-year period.

The announcement would be a sharp departure from the G.S.A.'s past position of awarding the $4.5 billion contract to a single bidder.

By 2003 a single bidder had emerged as the preferred company to develop the site.

Based on Mexico's earlier experience with privatization, selling the entire system to a single bidder would probably bring in the most money.

"I've never seen such high amounts on a single bidder!"

Mr. Fernandes has argued that selling the oil company stakes to single bidders, especially foreign ones, would compromise the nation's energy security and encourage monopoly.