Four decades after founding Time Out in the radical summer of 1968, Tony Elliott, the proprietor, is looking for a partner who may take control of the £30 million listings title that he has owned ever since.

Mr Elliott wants to expand Time Out's international web presence, but his magazine empire does not generate enough profit - forcing him to look outside for cash.

“The option of selling control is a possibility,” Mr Elliott, 62, told The Times. “It depends on the circum- stances. There could be a win-win, where I get a significant long-term stake. But I don't know if I want headlines saying Time Out is for sale. I still really enjoy what I do.”

First published on August 12, 1968, and listing a boat trip to France to protest against the Vietnam War in Paris, Time Out has survived as London's principal listings guide, fending off challenges from City Limits and newspaper guides and gradually expanding its brand to cover 30 cities, with magazines from St Petersburg to Singapore.

However, because of a lack of capital - Mr Elliott has never sold a share of Time Out in its history - the only title he wholly owns is the London one. He part-owns the magazines in New York and Chicago, but all the rest are licensed to local publishers, generating only a modest return for the owner.

Time Out, the company he owns, turned over £25.7 million in the year to December 2007, the last set of accounts available, and made a loss of £1.35 million. Mr Elliott said that the “total brand turnover is $95 million and we think we can turn that into $200 million in a reasonably short period of time”.

The intention is not to expand the company's print portfolio but the digital one. “We want to develop in Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds and Manchester; in Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And we'd certainly not look to launch magazines in places like Paris or Los Angeles without a developed website in place first.”

The valuation of the group will depend on an investor seeing long-term potential in the brand. Last year Time Out's sales fell sharply and 15 staff in London were made redundant as the company “struggled past the finish line”. This year the London title has picked up “and will make a profit even after paying financing charges”.

Mr Elliott has considered selling a stake in Time Out at various times, but has ended up walking away from deals. He tried to find a buyer for the $40 million-rated New York and Chicago titles last year, but bids fell short of what had been hoped and his investment partners in each city financed the magazines instead, pumping in extra loans.

However, the magazine owner, who survived a brush with prostate cancer earlier in the decade, seems more willing to take a less hands-on role. This year he hired a chief executive - David King - for the first time, which he said had made “a major difference to my life”.

He has recruited Evercore, the investment bank, to “explore all options”, a decision that he said was “not emotional but logical”. However, it is clear that Mr Elliott wants to remain at the head of a title he set up when its listings included a section entitled “Marches/Meet The Fuzz”.

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