Conde Nast Purchases Assets of YM Magazine.

NEW YORK -- Conde Nast Publications has agreed to purchase certain assets of YM magazine, which is currently published by Gruner & Jahr, it was announced today by Charles H. Townsend, President and C.E.O. of Conde Nast. Among the assets are YM's subscription file, its title and brand name, the rights to YM's special publication titles, the YM domain name (ym.com), and the magazine's newsstand pockets (slots in supermarkets, on newsstands, at discount stores, and at drug stores that currently display YM).

"We are delighted to make a key acquisition that fits perfectly into our growth plans for Teen Vogue and our position in the teen category of special interest magazines," Mr. Townsend said. "The performance of Teen Vogue to date has been extremely strong and this purchase underscores our confidence in the future of this category."

The last issue of YM will be its December/January issue. All 1.2 million YM subscribers will begin receiving Teen Vogue with the February, 2005 issue. Teen Vogue announced last month that in February its rate base was rising to 650,000. It will now increase to 850,000, effective with the February, 2005 issue.

"This acquisition is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to target a new group of teen readers with our distinctive editorial point of view," Gina Sanders, Teen Vogue's Vice President and Publisher, said. "We anticipate that we will retain as subscribers those fashion-savvy readers for whom Teen Vogue quickly becomes essential."

"Teen Vogue has emerged as the authority on fashion and style for today's teenage girls, inspiring a new generation with our journalistic excellence," the magazine's editor-in-chief, Amy Astley, said. "We are very enthusiastic about this opportunity to gain greater exposure and readership."

Teen Vogue was launched in January, 2003, in a Euro-sized format. The magazine publishes ten issues a year; it launched with an initial rate base of 450,000.