ENR won't be buying Building Design + Construction after all

Turns out that McGraw-Hill, Engineering News-Record's parent company, will not be buying Reed Business Information, Building Design + Construction. Nor will anyone else after news came out this week that Reed Elsevier has dropped discussions with potential bidders for Reed Business Information, it's business-to-business publisher.

Reports earlier in the week had private equity group Bain Capital in the lead to acquire Reed Business Information after another private equity firm dropped out of the bidding. The bids had fallen from about $2 billion to about $1 billion.

Reed Elsevier says it will consider selling Reed Business Information at some point when market conditions improve. In the meantime, Reed Business Information will be managed as a separate division within Reed Elsevier.

Reed Elsevier had announced plans to divest Reed Business Information, which also publishes Variety and Publishers Weekly, among many other trade magazines, back in February, citing a desire to exit the print industry. But tightening global credit markets have hampered the auction and eventually led to its being put on hold for the time being.

Ed