Publishing Casts Lures to Private Equity

By Carmen 

The Times of London’s “Mediapolis” column looks at the recent spate of acquisitions by private equity of publishing firms and wonders, in the wake of the Thomson-Reuters merger, who’s next. “United Business Media‘s PR Newswire looks especially tasty,” they write, “as does Emap Communications. Others include Euromoney, Centaur and Reed Elsevier‘s Lexis Nexis or Butterworths division.” And even though many mergers, or those in the wings, don’t have a lot of financial specifics, private equity firms are “lured by a business model with solid revenue from subscription renewals rather than less stable advertising and titles with niche strongholds.” Which means there could be yet more partner-changing in the not-too-distant future, too…