Playboy Magazine Publisher Explores Sale (Report)

The privately held company previously put the famed Playboy Mansion in the Los Angeles area on the market for $200 million.

Playboy, the men's lifestyle magazine famous for its nude pictorials, is for sale, and stakeholders are hoping to get about $500 million for it, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The privately held company previously put the famed Playboy Mansion in the Los Angeles area on the market for $200 million, with the unusual stipulation that Hefner remain its inhabitant.

According to the Journal, Playboy would consider splitting off assets rather than selling the whole entity to a single buyer.

Playboy has been struggling amid online competition, and earlier this year the 63-year-old company published its first magazine featuring no female nudity. The issue attracted more advertisers and more newsstands carried it, the company said.

Under CEO Scott Flanders, Playboy also recently adopted a strategy of less skin at its website, leading to a big increase in audience — in part because its now a safe destination to surf while at work — and the median age of visitors dropped.

Playboy was unavailable for comment.