Informa, the exhibitions group, has received an approach from a private equity consortium led by Providence Equity, valuing the company at £2.15 billion.

In a statement after the market closed last night, Informa confirmed that the consortium, which also includes The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman, had made a preliminary 506p per share bid on 26 June – a healthy 32 per cent premium on Informa’s closing shareprice yesterday.

Earlier this week it was reported that the consortium is thought to have a £1.8 billion financing package in place from banks including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and ING to help fund a bid. However, the consortium will have to inject more than £1 billion to refinance Informa’s debt.

The Times disclosed on May 13 that Informa was being circled by a number of private equity groups. Others to have run their rule over Informa include Candover, Cinven and Apax.

Candover and Cinven are still reported to be interested, but may need to find a partner if they are to compete. The two jointly own German academic publisher Springer, which had a bid for Informa rejected in 2006. Apax is unlikely to bid after its £1.2 billion takeover of Emap’s business-to-business arm.

The Providence approach follows the collapse of the £3.4 billion merger talks with United Business Media, its rival.

Yesterday, Informa said in its statement that discussions with the consortium “continue to be at an early stage and there can be no certainty that an offer will be made”.

While private equity has been attracted to Informa’s low dependence on advertising and its fast-growing exhibitions, conferences and events businesses, it has been unclear whether they would be able to make a deal work in the present market. There has also been skepticism in the market that a private equity takeover could be achieved because of Informa’s debt levels.

A takeover of Informa, which owns more than 2,000 trade publications including Lloyd's List maritime newspaper, would be one of the biggest leveraged buyouts in the UK since the credit crunch.

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