New Yorker Magazine Sold to Newhouse

The directors of the New Yorker Magazine Inc. announced today that they have agreed to sell the prestigious weekly publication and other holdings to Advance Publications, owned by S. I. Newhouse Jr.

Advance will pay $200 a share for the magazine’s common stock, an investment of about $142 million, the New Yorker said in a statement. Advance also agreed to maintain the New Yorker as a separate company and to retain the current directors, officers and employees.

Advance already owns about 17% of the New Yorker’s stock, a purchase completed Jan. 2 for $25.2 million. The company had said then that it had no interest in a takeover.

The New Yorker has a circulation of 500,746. The company also owns Boulder Enterprise Inc., a Colorado printing company, as well as controlling interests in Horticulture and Cook’s magazines.

Advance owns 29 newspapers, a major cable television system, Parade magazine, Random House publishing and Conde Nast Inc., which publishes nine magazines including Glamour, Mademoiselle and Vanity Fair.