Company Town

* Publishing: K-III Communications agreed to sell for an estimated $20 million the monthly movie industry magazine Premiere to French publisher Hachette Filipacchi Magazines in partnership with billionaire Ronald O. Perelman’s New World Communications Group Inc. The new venture, Premiere Publishing Co., will be a subsidiary of Hachette Filipacchi Presse and will manage the magazine. New World plans to use its ties to Premiere to develop TV shows built around celebrities covered in the magazine. K-III, controlled by investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, bought Premiere in 1991 and put it on the block in February because it did not fit with its other magazines, which include Seventeen, New York and Soap Opera Digest. The magazine, with a circulation of more than 600,000, has been unprofitable for most of its history, only recently moving into the black. Susan Lyne, editorial-publication director, and Mark Furlong, publisher, will retain their positions. Other potential suitors, such as Walt Disney Co., looked at the magazine. One stumbling block for other buyers was said to be Hachette’s ownership of the rights to the trademark, which would have made the name more difficult to exploit.

* Multimedia: MGM said Monday that it is forming an interactive division to produce entertainment titles for personal computers and video game machines. MGM Interactive will be headed by Ron Frankel, a veteran of both the computer software and consumer products industries.

Meanwhile, Bill Block, ICM’s West Coast head of operations, and interactive veteran Stephen Clarke-Willson said Monday they are forming a start-up to finance, produce and market a wide range of multimedia titles. The new firm, Anonymous Entertainment, is backed by New Line Cinema, France’s Havas media company, Island Trading Company and talent agency ICM. Block will manage the company’s business operations from Los Angeles, while Clarke-Willson will lead the company’s development and production divisions from Redmond, Wash.