Informa, the Lloyd’s List publisher, confirmed on Thursday that it had been approached by Candover and Cinven but cautioned that the approach had been “highly preliminary” and said discussions were “an extremely early stage”.

Any deal could create a European publishing champion worth more than £4bn. The two private equity firms already own Springer Science and Business Media, the world’s second-largest academic publisher, and would merge it with Informa, people familiar with the situation said.