Private equity group Apax Partners appears to be losing interest in its bid for Reed Elsevier's b-to-b publishing arm, Reed Business Information.

Apax is said to be using their recent purchase of Emap's b-to-b group for $2 billion through a partnership with the Guardian Media Group as the reason for its cooled interests in RBI, according to a report [1] in U.K.'s The Independent newspaper.

Apax and its subsidiary, Incisive Media, bought U.S.-based ALM [1] last year for $630 million.

Other private equity groups that have stepped up as potential RBI suitors [2] include Permira, Providence Equity Partners and Cinven. Industry observers have valued an RBI sale at about $2billion to 2.5 billion [2].

Last month, Reed Elsevier announced its planned divestiture of RBI [2] as part of the company's preliminary financial results statement for 2007.