Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Carlyle Group are among a group of five or six bidders chasing Thomson’s higher education publishing arm, in a deal that will set a benchmark for the sale of Reed Elsevier’s educational division.

The two firms are competing separately against Apax Partners, Warburg Pincus and a consortium of Blackstone, Thomas H. Lee and Bain, all of which owned Houghton Mifflin, the educational publisher, before selling last year. It is thought that bids for Thomson Learning could come in at around $3.5 billion (£1.74 billion).

Thomson is the latest in a string of publishers to offload educational assets, after the sale of Houghton Mifflin to Riverdeep, of Ireland, in a $5 billion deal and the disposal of Wolters Kluwer’s smaller education business to Bridgepoint for €774 million (£526 million).

Bertelsmann, the German media giant, is also involved in the auction. It was thought to have linked up with Holtzbrinck, its fellow German publisher, but some sources say that it was trying to hook up with the Blackstone syndicate.

Reed Elsevier’s Harcourt operation, a schools educational publisher that was once united with the Thomson college business in the same company, Harcourt General, is next on the block. Reed’s operation is valued at £1.6 billion and generated £129 million last year after a difficult 12 months. Reed is understood to hope that the winner of the Thomson auction will consider making a swoop for its own Harcourt unit.

Thomson, a professional publishing and information group, is two-thirds owned by the Canadian Thomson family, which wants to sell the business to focus on its financial, legal and science and health-care divisions. The company believes that it is better to focus on services to professionals rather than the competitive education market, led by Pearson, of Britain.

Final bids are due in the middle of next month, in a process that is being conducted by Morgan Stanley.

The higher educational unit is by far the largest part of Thomson Learning, all of which is on the block in various parts with a total value of $5 billion. Last year Thomson Learning generated profits 6 per cent up on the previous year at $383 million on sales of $2.4 billion, producing a growth rate and a profit margin, at 15.6 per cent, that were the lowest of the company’s principal divisions.

The interest in educational assets, which have changed hands for a little over 11 times underlying earnings in the Houghton Mifflin and Riverdeep deals, according to analysis produced by Dresdner Kleinwort, has helped to push Pearson shares to a five-year high.

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