The private equity firm Apax is understood to be favourite to buy Emap’s business-to-business publishing business as bidding moves to the second round.
Guardian Media Group is involved with the Apax bid, with the second round also seeing bids from private equity houses Cinven and Candover, joint owners of German publishing group Springer.
According to a report in the Guardian, two other private equity houses, Providence and Permira, are rumoured to have made a joint bid in the second round.
Emap’s business publishing division is valued at between £1.2 billion and £1.4 billion.
Last month, Emap reported that pre-tax profit in the six months to the end of September fell 16% year on year to £80 million while revenues were down 1% on an underlying basis to £386 million.
However, Emap executive chairman Alan Cathcart said the company was “on track” to deliver against expectations for the full year (see Emap’s Pre-Tax Profits Drop 16%).
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