• February 16, 2006

Acquisitive British publishing giant Reed Elsevier plans to make a new round of high-profile acquisitions, CEO Crispin Davis told reporters Thursday. Noting that Reed's recent purchases have ranged in the $50 million to $500 million range, he said he anticipated future deals would be around the same scale, The disclosure comes as Dutch research and publishing giant VNU goes into play. VNU, which publishes trade magazines such as Adweek, Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, competes directly with Reed, which publishes such magazines as Broadcasting & Cable and Variety. A consortium of private equity firms has made a bid to acquire VNU for more than $8 billion, and likely would break it up and sell off the pieces, which also include Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen. A group of VNU shareholders, however, have proposed breaking the company up into three pieces: publishing, media research and marketing research.