The Portuguese media group Controlinveste has shut up shop on two of its newspapers this week with the closures of free newspaper Global Notícias and the national daily 24 Horas.

Reed Elsevier has abandoned its attempt to sell its business unit, Reed Business Information. The publisher said yesterday it had ended talks with its remaining bidder because the worsening state of the economy and poor credit market conditions meant that it could no longer make a disposal 'on acceptable terms'.

Reed still wants to sell the business, but said it would wait until conditions improved.

Mixed news on the Emap front: it is to sell its consumer magazine business and radio operations to Heinrich Bauer for the sum of GBP1.14 billion, but its business-to-business unit remains unsold. Emap was unhappy with the levels of the bids offered, including from Apax and the GMG; it had been holding out for something around GBP1.3 billion, but failed to achieve it.

Emap's shares fell by nearly 10% on Friday as the market reacted badly to the news.

Financial media company Euromoney Institutional Investor has issued a warning that its growth has slowed (despite a reported 50% increase in full-year adjusted pre-tax profit), prompting its shares to fall by 13% to 415.5p.

While adjusted profits before tax rose to GBP55.5 million on turnover 38% higher at GBP305 million, and subscription revenues were healthy, chairman Padraic Fallon expressed concerns that the ongoing trouble in the financial markets could have a knock-on effect on Euromoney should it drag on. He commented:

"The new financial year has begun reasonably well, although growth is slower. The full year may be testing if financial markets deteriorate further, but the 2007 results provide a strong platform to launch new products and to make more acquisitions on the back of strong cash flows."

After receiving several approaches for parts of its business, Emap effectively put itself up for sale or break-up last Friday by announcing a strategic review of all its assets.

The announcement follows a number of profit warnings and the departure of the company's chief executive, Tom Maloney, earlier this year.

Private equity company Apax is thought to have made an approach to buy the business-to-business arm of Emap for £1.3 billion. But it could face tough competition; United Business Media is also being tipped as a potential bidder.

Business information provider Incisive Media announced yesterday that it has agreed to acquire media company American Lawyer Media (ALM) from US equity partners, LP, for £315 million.

ALM owns and publishes 33 national and regional magazines and newspapers focused on the legal and real estate communities, including The American Lawyer, The New York Law Journal and Real Estate Forum. Incisive Media's leading brands include Investment Week, Post Magazine and Accountancy Age.

Tim Weller, Incisive Media's founder and chief executive, said:

The acquisition of ALM will advance Incisive Media substantially towards our strategic goal of creating a leading global business-to-business media company. ALM, like Incisive Media, is a provider of high-quality business information and, in terms of both products and geography, is extremely complementary to our existing business.