MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
November 27 – December 4, 2008 Edition
Offers for Reed
Elsevier Magazine
Unit Fall By Half
NEW YORK, NY/Authorlink News/11/24/08Bids for Reed Elsevier Plc’s trade magazine unit, which includes Publishers Weekly, have dropped to half of what the company originally anticipated. According to a report by Bloomberg, the bid price has fallen to $1 billion.
As a result, Chief Executive Officer Crispin Davis will either cancel the sale of Reed Business Information or choose a bidder for final talks in coming weeks, according to Bloomberg’s confidential sources.
When Reed Business Information unit was put up for sale in February this year, analysts estimated the sale price to be around $2 billion. The economic slump and troubled debt markets may make it impossible to sell the company in the current climate.
Reed Elsevier stock price has dropped 23 percent this year.
CEO Davis wants to sell the unit before he retires in March, according to analysts. His successor, Ian Smith, former head of homebuilder Taylor Woodrow, Plc, will succeed Davis.
Davis recently met with two bidders, Bain Capital LLC and a combination of TPG Inc. and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, to discuss final offers, one of the people said. Both have completed a review of the unit’s finances.
Company spokesmen have declined comment on the sale.
