Sale Of Pearson's IDC Unit Edges Toward Next Round - Sources

Next-round bids for Interactive Data Corp. (IDC), the U.S.-listed financial-data provider majority owned by U.K. publisher Pearson PLC (PSO), are due by April 30, people familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires on Monday.

Bids are expected from three buyout groups and one strategic player.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and CVC Capital Partners have teamed up and have hired Stuart Clark, former IDC chief executive, as an advisor; Warburg Pincus has now joined Hellman & Friedman and Silver Lake Partners to submit a joint bid; and Bain Capital is bidding jointly with Advent International, people said.

Trade player McGraw-Hill Cos. (MHP) is also expected to put in a bid, having submitted in the initial round.

Pearson, which also publishes the Financial Times newspaper and owns a large U.S. educational publishing business, hired Goldman Sachs (GS) in January to conduct a "preliminary review of strategic alternatives" for IDC, in which it has a 61% stake.

This led to a sales process, and the company shortlisted a handful of bidders earlier this month, people previously told Dow Jones.

A representative for Pearson declined to comment. Representatives for McGraw Hill and Goldman Sachs weren't immediately available to comment.

-By Marietta Cauchi, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]

(Lilly Vitorovich in London and Melissa Korn in New York contributed to this item.)