Time Out is hoping to sell its New York edition for $40 million (£26.8 million) after its investors pushed for a return on their 13-year investment—the magazine’s founder Tony Elliot wants to hold on the mag but can’t afford to buy them out. He tells Times Online that a TONY sale will take place for the right price, but “if somebody offers $10 million, it won’t happen”. TONY‘s investors ploughed in a good deal of capital to set up the magazine in 1995—The Times puts it at between $10 million and $30 million—but Elliot has not found a way, or the money, to take full control himself. And he’s not happy about the move: TONY sells twice as many copies as its London counterpart and is firmly part of cultural life in Gotham. “We don’t need to sell New York, this is entirely driven by the investors,” he says.

And in this environment not many would fancy holding an open auction, even for the relatively low price of $40 million for a big magazine brand. Elliot owns the London edition but not Time Out’s many international city editions, which are published under licence by other publishers—yet Elliot does own one third of the New York edition. Also on the auction block is TONY’s stake in Time Out Chicago so investors could walk away with both US Time Outs. The three New York shareholders own half of the Chicago title and Joe Mansueto of Morningstar owns the rest. First round bids are expected this week. More after the jump…

The Times has done some delving through Time Out Group’s London-based accounts and found it made a pre-tax loss of £465,000 for the 11 months to December 2006 and turnover of £22.7 million—the share of losses in New York and Chicago amounted to £81,000. But despite hard times Elliot has no plans to sell Time Out London, the magazine he founded in 1968. He tells The Times: “Advertising is down, it’s a bit of a struggle, but we’ll get by. I’m not going anywhere,”. The mag is going through a period of soul-searching and is seeking investment to help it figure out what role it will play in an online age.

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