the US. Fast forward 10 years and profits are down by one-third, with just 25% from the US. By the time it sells the legendary Hollywood trade newspaper Variety next month, RBI will have completely exited the US B2B magazine-centric market and divested a total of more than 150 print titles in 14 countries that just four years ago represented almost 50% of its portfolio. Phew! But this is not a planned migration from 'print to digital': it is Reed walking away from markets it once had dominated in order to concentrate on a small number of increasingly global, database-led services primarily in banking, chemicals and property.  But then this consolidation has been the sequel to a 'will-they, won't-they' bid  by the parent company to sell off the whole of RBI. In a model lesson of 'how not to motivate your managers', Reed Elsevier started an auction for RBI in the dogdays of  2008. By the end of a year during which the financial markets were in constant turmoil and the profligate private equity buyers of near rival EMAP could have warned off would-be suitors, Reed withdrew in the worst way. It would instead try to sell Reed Business Information again "in the medium term," when conditions were more favourable. So the talks and scuttlebutt continued for the best part of a further year. That was two CEOs ago. Now, it's all changed. Last year, the increasingly impressive RBI quietly became the Reed Elsevier star with profit growth of 23%.