Reed Elsevier Puts BRI Up For Sale

Posted on February 22, 2008
Filed Under Companies |

It’s kind of interesting that this didn’t get more widely reported on yesterday, it is a fairly significant event when you consider the size of the company and the number of web sites and publications that the company operates, which is somewhere in the range of 900.

Reed is not a company that gets a lot of ink. While many of the publications are niche, like Famer’s Weekly, others like Variety are not, and their Zibb b2b search service is unique in both it’s focus and depth. Some online initiatives, like Supply Chain Daily (in conjunction with mSpoke) are downright innovative.

At the end of the day Reed wants to be more like Factiva, combining the strategic assets of LexisNexis with newly acquired ChoicePoint to deliver subscription data services to large vertical markets rather than advertising supported publications to every business segment.

Reed Elsevier said the planned sale of RBI is aimed toward “reducing exposure to advertising markets and cyclicality” as it concentrates instead on subscription-based information and other offerings. It follows the recent sale of its education division.

[From Reed plans sale of Variety, other trade publications]

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