According to a report in The Times today, the runners are as follows:
Consumer magazines division (valued at £700m):
Hearst, Providence, Cinven, Quadrangle and Exponent.
US media group Hearst owns Cosmopolitan publisher, The National Magazine Company. If it was to successfully merge this with Emap's consumer magazines it would form the UK's largest magazine publisher.
The other four are private equity companies. This year Quadrangle acquired Dennis Publishing's US titles for £119m, and Exponent's bid is limited to Emap's specialist portfolio.
There was no place for the European publishers including Lagardere and Mondadori which had expressed interest in the first round.
Radio division (valued at £400m):
GCap Media, Global Radio, UTV, Vitruvian Partners and Veronis Suhler Stevenson.
GCap is the largest of the three radio groups bidding for Emap and faces having to dispose of some stations if its bid is successful.
The latter pair are private equity firms. Vitruvian has enlisted former Chrysalis Radio chief executive Phil Riley to lead its bid.
Business-to-business division (valued at £1.3bn):
UBM, Guardian Media Group, Apax, Providence, Cinven.
Apax, which owns another B2B publisher, Incisive Media, has previously been reported as seeking a tie-up with Guardian Media Group to buy Emap's B2B division.
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