P.M. BRIEFING : Field Publications Sale Pending

A New York publishing firm is negotiating to buy Field Publications, the company that publishes Weekly Reader, a news magazine read by more than 10 million schoolchildren each week.

Field Corp., the Chicago-based parent of the Middletown-based publishing arm, is in the final stages of negotiations with K-III Holdings Inc., Field executives said Wednesday. Field has been looking for a buyer for its Middletown subsidiary since summer.

“It’s not final, but hopefully it will be final soon,” said Bruce Seide, president of Field Publications.

The negotiations also involve Funk & Wagnalls Inc., Field’s encyclopedia affiliate in Ramsey, N.J.

K-III Holdings, the company negotiating for the purchase, was formed in 1989 by former executives from the publisher Macmillan Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a New York-based leveraged-buyout giant that owns RJR Nabisco Inc., Stop & Shop and Duracell.

The family of Marshall Field IV, which owns Field Corp., decided to consider selling Field Publications to raise cash and not because of the subsidiary’s performance, Seide said.