London’s Telegraph newspaper has reported that Bono’s private equity firm, Elevation Partners, is looking at buying a 25% share of Nirvana’s back catalog.

Apparently, Courtney Love owns the publishing rights to Nirvana’s songs and is finding it difficult to manage the catalog by herself.

Bono’s friendship with Kurt Cobain and Courtney go back to the early days of Nirvana. Bono is quoted as saying to Newsweek, “I remember watching Kurt come through and thinking, ‘God, this music is nuclear’,” says Bono. “This is really splitting the atom. They raised the temperature for everybody. Manufactured pop never looked so cold as when that heat was around. Nirvana made everything else look silly.”

The Nirvana Internet Fanclub has reported in July 2002, “U2’s Bono and R.E.M’s Michael Stipe are on a potential witness list for Courtney Love in her current legal battle with Dave Grohl and Krist Noveselic over the control of Nirvana music, merchandising, and marketing. According to a spokesperson for Love, Bono and Stipe are among the people that she’s talked to about Nirvana-related issues. Bono reportedly once offered advice to the late Kurt Cobain on coping with rock stardom and celebrity fame, but was turned away at the time, which Love reportedly regrets.”

The full Telegrah story can be read here.