Update: Hearst has made an indicative offer of £700 million for the consumer division of Emap (LSE: EMA), reports the FT today (Monday, 8 October). It also reports that Phil Riley, ex-head of Chrysalis Radio, has put in a bid for the radio operations, and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners has teamed with Texas Pacific Group to buy both Emap’s consumer publishing and radio divisions. Apax Partners is reported to be the “front runner” for the B2B division, estimated to be worth around £1.2 billion. Last Friday was the deadline for indicative bids for Emap’s assets, based on a memorandum sent out by the publisher in September.

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The first concrete identification of a publishing bidder - Sunday Telegraph reckons America’s Hearst magazine company is making a bid for the consumer division of Emap. That’s the unit with retail magazines and their websites in (the other two being radio and B2B). Previous reports hold that DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Texas Pacific Group want to bid for the consumer and radio divisions, as Emap carves itself up, while the more lucrative B2B business should have no problems finding a buyer.

Hearst’s UK unit NatMags is the country’s third-placed magazine publisher behind Time-Warner’s IPC and Emap, Telegraph notes. All three publishers are perpetually in intense competition with one another for the female and home-maker vertical so some synergies might be expected (NatMags has Prima, Emap has First; NatMags has Prima Baby, Emap has Mother & Baby).

What kind of internet publisher would this deal create? Although CEO Duncan Edwards told last week’s AOP conference he didn’t regret it, only of late has NatMags really got on top of its online strategy, after an aborted UK launch of Women.com in 2000. It’s since acquired online-only outfits Handbag.com and NetDoctor, getting ahead of rival publishers who are only now electing to aggregate their related print brands, portal-fashion. Emap last month announced plans to pool content from Grazia, Heat, Closer and First in a new women’s portal (and it’s also planning a fashion portal based on its Drapers, Pop, Premier Kids, Pure Women show and WGSN.com brands). But NatMags, too, is planning a women’s site with content from Prima, Good Housekeeping, She and others. A combined Emap-NatMags combo would be well positioned to take advantage of the increasing amount of time women are spending online but, with online integration plans already advanced, any join-up would likely have to revise those new strategies.