"Blaming down global markets, London-based Reed Elsevier today said it has dropped discussions with potential bidders for Reed Business Information, its b-to-b publishing arm. Earlier this week, private equity group Bain Capital was said to be the frontrunner in the auction after another private equity group, TPG, pulled out of the bidding. The bids were said to have fall from approximately $2 billion to $1 billion." [Folio]

"Bain Capital, a US-based private equity fund, is leading the chase for Reed Business International, a unit of publisher Reed Elsevier that houses titles such as New Scientist, Variety and Estates Gazette. According to reports, Bain Capital is favourite to win RBI, which has an expected value of approximately US$1bn, although Reed Elsevier management is understood to be unhappy with some conditions of the bid, including an earn-out structure that ties key personnel into the business in the long-term." [peHUB]

When Reed Elsevier "quietly asked" a blogger to stop chronicling its hopeful sale of Reed Business Information, the blogger complied.

Who's got a couple billion dollars to snap up Reed Elsevier's publishing division? Si Newhouse technically does, but he's not interested. The Conde Nast scion has officially ruled out buying the giant's properties, like Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, and a slew of others, even though, thanks to that riley credit market, the asking price of $2.5 billion is likely a whole billion dollars less than Reed could've fetched just last year. And you know who loves stuff on the cheap? Or just stuff? Private equity! Which is where this deal was headed from the beginning.

Rumors that Nielsen is looking to unload its business publishing arm – which includes The Hollywood Reporter and Mediaweek – is today being met with news that Reed Elsevier, owner of LexisNexis, might be selling off its business publishing unit.

The Reed Business Information unit, headed by Gerard van de Aast, includes magazines like New Scientist, trades like Broadcasting & Cable, Publishers Weekly, and, oh, a little publication called Variety — all of which might be on the auction block as part of a Reed Elsevier "restructuring." Which is a fancy way of saying that they're buying ChoicePoint, a risk-management analytics company, for $4 billion … and they need to find the cash from somewhere. (Haven't you heard the credit market is in shambles?)

What no major press outlet has done with the news, however, is connect the dots that the two trades responsible for sucking up to studios could both be on their way to changing hands.

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