Take over rumors in the business publishing world

It's funny to see how cyclic the rumors of take over bid are in the business publishing. In the industry, there is only 3 global players : Thomson, Reed Elsevier (mostly known for his brand Lexis-Nexis) and Wolters Kluwer (mostly known as CCH in the US market). Every 2 years there are rumors of either merge between 2 of the three or acquisition of one of them by the others. this time the market place was expecting Wolters Kluwer to acquire Reeds. Their Share event rose with 2% on the London stock exchange... In the mean time, EU regulation have already stated in 1998 that it would contradict competition rules and that merging those 2 dutch rivals in the same group, with the current set of activities was not possible. Now, WK put his education division for sales. You can apply for a price of 700m€...