VNU Business for sale?

Having speculated back in July that VNU's $7 billion acquisition of IMS might give the Asian management team room to breathe as they develop their business media activities, Crain's Bt2B Online and the Wall Street Journal report that the whole VNU Business division may be up for sale.

The Journal says:

VNU NV is considering some radical measures to win the support of institutional shareholders who are skeptical about its $7 billion deal to buy IMS Health Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

and goes on to suggest:

To appease unhappy investors, VNU could seek to sell its business-information unit, which publishes trade magazines such as Hollywood Reporter and Billboard and organizes trade fairs, according to people familiar with the situation. The division could fetch more than €1 billion ($1.2 billion), these people say.

B2B's Sean Callaghan adds:

Industry observers have long speculated that VNU Business Media did not fit in with VNU’s overall effort to limit its exposure to cyclical ad revenues.

Just what they need: investment bankers crawling all over them.

Update: More on this Steven Ennen's post on ABM's Media Pace and from David Shaw who points out (shame on us for not reading more carefully) that this has been in the air for some while.