The Financial Times reports that publishing and conferences group Informa is in talks with private equity firms Candover and Cinven to create a European publishing giant worth over 4 billion pounds. The two private equity firms already own Springer Science and Business Media, the world’s second-largest academic publisher, and are planning to merge it with Informa, people familiar with the situation said. To aid them in their quest, Candover and Cinven are working with investment bank UBS on the proposed deal and have lined up financing from Barclays Bank.
Informa later confirmed the approach to FT but the Lloyd’s list publisher cautioned that the approach had been “highly preliminary” and said discussions were “an extremely early stage”.