Cinven, the European buy-out house, is bringing in US private equity firm Carlyle on its €2bn ($1.8bn) deal with Vivendi Universal, the French publishers, as UK firm Apax Partners looks set to scale back its co-investment in the transaction.

Cinven has been in talks since the end of September to bring in Apax as a co-investor in its deal to acquire the business-to-business publishing unit of Vivendi Universal. According to reports in the French press, Apax may either pull out of the deal entirely, or take a much smaller stake of around 10% of the Vivendi unit.