The magazine that made Jennifer Love Hewitt famous in those images of 1999......My Love Hewitt Websites are proud of those images, too.....Thank you, Felix.

by Kenneth Li

NEW YORK, NY - Dennis Publishing Inc., publisher of "lad magazine" Maxim, said on Thursday it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a possible sale, as the number of readers of men's magazines falls.

The company hired media bankers Allen & Co. as its exclusive financial adviser with an aim to net $500 million to $700 million, one source familiar with the matter said.

The source said Maxim's U.S. magazine edition alone generates about $40 million to $45 million in annual sales.

The Week, a political and news weekly whose paid circulation rose 21 percent in the last six months of last year, is the only asset not a part of the strategic review.

Dennis, which also owns lad magazine Stuff and music magazine Blender, is credited with resuscitating the men's magazine sector with publications featuring glossy spreads of scantily clad women.

Other business projects of the company include a Maxim-themed hotel/casino targeted to open in 2010, restaurants, bars, clubs, furniture, satellite radio stations and Web sites.

Maxim, launched in the mid-1990s in the United Kingdom, made its U.S. debut in 1997.

Felix Dennis, the company's outspoken and colorful billionaire owner, has been cast by the media as a modern Hugh Hefner, founder of adult entertainment magazine Playboy Enterprises Inc..

Dennis, who resides in the UK, has made no secret of his desire to leave the media business. The company put its U.S. operations up for sale last year, according to published reports.

There are 31 international editions of Maxim magazine in 45 countries, including the United States, UK and Thailand.

Circulation at key titles, including Maxim, has fallen as the buzz of the new generation of men's magazines faded.

Although total paid North American circulation has held steady at 2.5 million, newsstand sales fell 12.2 percent in the second half of last year, according to publishers' figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations this week.

Stuff magazine newsstand sales fell 35 percent and total paid circulation fell 4.8 percent in the same period.

Total paid circulation for Blender rose 7.4 percent in the second half of 2006.

In the UK and Ireland, circulation in the men's lifestyle sector was down 14.4 percent. Men's magazine FHM saw circulation fall 25.9 percent, while Loaded, Maxim and Arena fell almost 30 percent.

(Additional reporting by Kate Holton in London and Robert MacMillan in New York)

Story: © 2007 Reuters Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Image: © 1999 Dennis Maxim Inc. All Rights Reserved.