A group of private equity houses and rival media companies have made it through to the second round of bidding for the assets of UK publishers Emap, which has said it wants to sell itself off in three parts: consumer publishing, B2B and radio. “Defying market conditions…at least five bidders for each division have made it through to the next stage,” reports The Times. Emap (LSE: EMA) would like the sales to be completed by the end of this year, but if financing proves a problem it would consider spinning off different divisions. The sales are being handled by Citigroup and Lazar.

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—Guardian Media Group, United Business Media, Apax, Cinven and Providence are on the list for the B2B titles, which have an estimated market cap of £1.3 billion ($2.6 billion).

—Hearst, Providence, Cinven, Quadrangle and Exponent are shortlisted for the consumer titles, estimated to be worth £700 million ($1.4 billion). Exponent is apparently only interested in the specialist magazine portion of the consumer group (eg, Cars), for an undisclosed sum. Emap has said it wants to sell the business in three divisions but would consider a bigger break-up “at the right price.”

—GCap, Global Radio, Vitruvian Partners, Veronis Suhler Stevenson and UTV are through to the second round for the radio assets, worth around £400 million ($810,000). Given GCap’s radio footprint in the UK, it may be barred from buying the entire division without selling off some of its own assets first.