Time Inc. special interest titles may fetch US$400 million

Word on the street in New York is that the Time4Media properties (18 special interest magazines that Time Inc. has put up for sale) could fetch between US$300 million and US$400 million. It's also expected that frontrunners to pick them up are Europeans who have the leverage of the strong euro. This according to a column in the New York Post.

The titles in play include Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Popular Science, Parenting and Baby Talk and associated web sites. (The most profitable of the Time4Media titles, Golf magazine, is not being sold - it's being merged into the Sports Illustrated Group.)

Rumour is that the confidental briefing books for the sale, which won't even be released to potential buyers until mid-October, suggest that the titles have free cash flow in the range of $30 million.