Bruce Wasserstein, the chairman of Lazard, has agreed to sell the American Lawyer Media group (which includes the flagship American Lawyer magazine and the Legal Tech trade shows) to Incisive Media in the UK (the owners of Legal Week among other titles) for $630 million. Wasserstein and his co-investors paid $63 million for American Lawyer and $200 million for National Law Publishing in 1997 to form the company that is now ALM. Incisive said it will pay cash for ALM, which publishes 33 US magazines and newspapers for the legal and property professions.

The purchase will almost double the size of Incisive and help the company expand in the US. The deal is the fourth for the London-based company since it was acquired by Apax Partners in December. About 55 percent of ALM's revenue comes from print publications which, according to the management, win advertisers because legal professionals still prefer receiving information on paper. ALM had free cash flow of more than $10 million, or about 3 percent of total debt at the end of December, Moody's Investors Service said in a March report. American Lawyer had a monthly circulation of 17,000 as of last December

Apax bought Incisive Media, which was founded in 1995, for about £275 million. Incisive publishes Investment Week and Accountancy Age in addition to Legal Week. Incisive said it plans to complete the purchase of ALM in the third quarter. Upon completion of the deal, ALM CEO William Pollak will join the board of Incisive Media.