• Folio:, Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:18 AM

Blaming down global markets, London-based Reed Elsevier says it has dropped discussions with potential bidders for Reed Business Information, its b-to-b publishing arm that publishes Variety, Publishers Weekly and other trade magazines.

Reed announced plans to divest RBI in February, citing a desire to exit the print industry. But the auction has faced repeated credit-crisis hurdles. The problems eventually caused one of the banks to back out of a consortium put together by Reed to lend the buyer more than $1 billion in staple financing.

Earlier this week, private-equity group Bain Capital moved up to be the front runner in the auction after private-equity group TPG pulled out. At the same time, the bids reportedly fell from approximately $2 billion to $1 billion. RBI will now be managed as a separate division within Reed Elsevier.

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