P.M. BRIEFING : Time Warner Buys Publisher of Sunset for $225 Million

New York publishing giant Time Warner Inc. has agreed to buy Lane Publishing Co., publishers of the popular travel publication Sunset magazine, for $225 million, the companies announced today.

Time Warner will hand over about $80 million in cash and $145 million in preferred stock for Lane Publishing, which also owns Sunset Books and Sunset Films, the Peninsula Times Tribune of Palo Alto reported today.

Melvin B. Lane, 67, and L. W. Lane Jr., 70, co-chairmen of Lane Publishing, agreed on the sale near the end of 1989, a Sunset spokesman said. The sale ends 92 years of local ownership of the Northern California publishing company.

The Lane brothers today notified employees of the sale in an internal memo. They had approached a number of major publishers in attempts to sell, the newspaper reported.

“Our highest priorities have always been to maintain Sunset’s editorial excellence, to continue its growth and to ensure that the future of Sunset is in the right hands,” the Lane brothers said in a statement.

Time Inc. Magazine Co., a subsidiary of Time Warner, will publish Sunset and maintain its operations in Menlo Park.

Sunset magazine covers the 13 western states and circulates to nearly 5 million readers monthly.