Time Warner Ends Talks With Meredith and Will Spin Off Time Inc. Into Separate Company

Time Warner will spin off its Time Inc. magazine unit into a separate, publicly traded company, a move that will allow the media conglomerate to focus entirely on its cable television and film businesses.

The announcement came hours after Time Warner and Meredith Corporation ended negotiations on a proposal that would have joined in a separate company many Time Inc. titles with magazines published by Meredith. Laura Lang, the chief executive of Time Inc. who started the job just over a year ago, said she would depart once the spinoff of the magazine division was complete. The deal with Meredith fell apart in part because of Time Warner’s concern over the fate of four of Time Inc.’s famous but struggling magazines — Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money, according to three people with knowledge of the negotiations who could not publicly discuss private conversations. At one point Meredith expressed some interest in the news and sports magazines, but Meredith decided not to pursue them because such a deal would have diluted its controlling family’s shares in the new company, another person with knowledge of the negotiations said. If Time Warner retained those four titles, the economics of a full spinoff proved more appealing, this person said.