Mondadori, the magazine publisher controlled by Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian Prime Minister, has expressed interest in buying Emap’s £700 million consumer magazine division.

The Italian group has asked for a sales memorandum on Britain’s second-largest magazine publisher, placing it in competition with Lagardère, of France, whose British operations are run by Kevin Hand, the former Emap chief executive.

Mondadori, chaired by Mr Berlusconi’s daughter Marina, already knows Emap well. The British company publishes Grazia, the Mondadori fashion weekly, under licence and sold its struggling French operation to Mondadori for £380 million last year.

Emap has put itself up for sale and is inviting bids for its three main divisions – consumer magazines, busi-ness-to-business publishing and radio. Although no bidders for the whole company are thought to have emerged, several trade bidders have asked to see the memorandums due out next month. Concern over the credit squeeze has not held back the sale timetable.

Mondadori is Italy’s dominant magazine publisher, with 38.5 per cent of the market. Mr Berlusconi’s Fininvest owns just over half the company, which also has interests in books and radio, and had €1.75 billion (£1.18 billion) turnover last year and pretax profits of €189 million. Listed in Milan, its market value is about €1.7 billion – and so buying Emap’s consumer magazine business would be a transforming deal for the group.

It had been widely thought that Emap’s consumer magazine business would be the hardest division to sell, but the company has been contacted by several private equity backers. That level of interest at this early stage has given Emap hope that it can achieve its target of offloading the operation, which has been Britain’s most creative publisher in recent years.

Separately, Reed Elsevier, United Business Media, Informa and the venture capital group Charterhouse are among those who are understood to have requested information on Emap’s professional publishing operation. It is home to titles such as Drapers, the retail industry weekly, and the Local Government Chronicle. That unit has been valued at about £1.3 billion, although it is unclear how keen would-be buyers are on all the assets contained within the division.

Emap, however, is insisting that each of the divisions must be acquired as a block, although it may allow consortium bids. Would-be bidders have questioned how far the professional publishing unit has developed in electronic publishing. They are also worried about a lack of recent investment.

GCap Media, Britain’s biggest commercial radio group, and Global Radio, the new owner of the former Chrysalis Radio, have emerged as potential bidders for the Kiss and Magic radio unit, which has been valued at £400 million.

However, although the cost savings available to any trade buyer make the radio assets the least likely to fall into private equity hands, any move by a trade bidder would face a significant regulatory inquiry.

Although there is relatively limited geographical overlap between GCap’s radio station portfolio and Emap’s portfolio, GCap has a 31.3 per cent share of commercial listening hours, compared with 24 per cent for the No 2-ranked Emap. Global Radio, owner of Heart, has an 11.9 per cent share, giving it more headroom. Emap is being advised by Lazard and Citigroup.

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