LONDON, Nov 17: Reader’s Digest has been bought by a company keen to build on a brand that is still known worldwide. Having remained the magazine for all ages for most of its 84 sunshine years, it was in recent years losing both on circulation and advertisement revenue.

Ripplewood Holdings, the new owners announced the $1.6bn deal on Friday while taking over the magazine's 50 editions, printed in 21 languages, boasting around 80 million readers worldwide.

Although the company claims it has more high-income readers than Fortune magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times put together, Reader's Digest has fallen out of favour with the younger readers that advertisers covet, prompting the company to put it up for sale.

DeWitt Wallace, who launched the magazine in 1922, had with his wife Lila built a global empire that reached its apogee in the mid 1970s before beginning its decline.

Mr Wallace died in 1981, but left a philanthropic foundation that has become one of the largest donors to arts, education and cultural projects in the US.

Before his death, Mr Wallace made his philosophy clear. "The dead carry to their graves only that which they have given away," he said.

Private equity company Ripplewood will add Reader's Digest to its ownership of World Almanac and Weekly Reader.