Reuters offers a run-down of the vultures — sorry, runners and riders in the Great EMAP Auction, the first stage of which ends this week.
Consumer magazines: circa 50 titles
— H. Bauer
— Hearst Corp (bidding with private equity house Exponent, says the Telegraph)
— TPG (private equity)
B2B Publishing:
— Apax (private equity) and Guardian Media Group
— Permira and Providence (private equity)
— Candover and Cinven (private equity)
— Reed Elsevier (“unlikely to push too hard for the business,” say Reuters sources)
Radio:
— Veronis Suhler Stevenson and Vitruvian Partners (private equity, with Phil Riley, former CEO of Chrysalis Radio)
— Global Radio (private equity-funded consortium run by ex-ITV CEO Charles Allen)
— H. Bauer (possibly)
— Guardian Media Group (interested in individual assets, according to the FT)
UBS, the investment bank, expects EMAP to achieve a break-up price of 1,030p. That divides up as follows:
- Consumer magazines: £700m
- B2B Publishing: £1.25bn
- Radio: £400m
EMAP’s shares finished Tuesday at 840p. I don’t know about you, but the substantial gap between that price and the UBS break-up value suggests that investors are plenty nervous about the sale process.
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