The BBC is reporting that the bid by a consortium of museums (Royal Museums Greenwich,National Museums Northern Ireland,Titanic Belfast and Titanic Foundation Limited and others)has been outbid by a hedge fund consortium that bid $19.5 million for the collection. The head of the National Museums of Northern Ireland (NMNI) said that they had not given up hope of bringing the collection to Northern Ireland. While it is not clear whether they can raise additional money, they will stress that selling to them will keep the collection in public ownership. One Titanic expert, Professor John William Foster disagrees.

Foster states: “What happened to Titanic after she left Belfast is, in a sense, none of Belfast’s business,” he said. “As this exhibition circulates the globe, we get a lot of publicity from this, and it’s good publicity – not the publicity from the Troubles, so I’d be keen to see these artefacts keep going around the world.”

Source: Titanic: Museum bid to bring artefacts to Belfast fails (BBC,22 Sept 2018)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-45606277