After Bertelsmann, the parent company of Random House, announced in a statement yesterday that its fortunes were strong enough to enable them to begin buying up new prospects once again, Reuters reports that the conglomerate, along with three other partners, may be interested in Thomson Education, which is worth a reported $5 billion. Unnamed insiders were quoted in the Financial Times on Thursday as saying Bertelsmann was eyeing Thomson Learning with the private equity groups. It did not give the names of the buy-out firms.

Bertelsmann said on Wednesday it can spend up to 6 billion euros ($8 billion) by 2010 and is also setting up a 1 billion euros private equity fund to invest in media businesses, especially in Asia and the United States but also Europe, and certainly buying up Thomson would be an interesting move for them...