News Corp. has made a $5 billion takeover offer for Dow Jones & Co., parent company of The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones announced.
The Bancroft family, the controlling shareholder of The Wall Street Journal’s parent company Dow Jones & Co., is considering a $5 billion buyout offer from News Corp., the international media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
But shares representing a slight majority of the voting power of Dow Jones are opposed to News Corp.’s offer, the company said in a statement just before 4 p.m. A representative of the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones through a class of supervoting stock, informed the company’s board that there are enough shares to block News Corp.’s takeover offer. Full story…
UPDATE:
May 2 (Bloomberg) — Dow Jones & Co. shareholders say Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion takeover bid will spark an auction of the 125-year-old newspaper publisher.
“We’re in the first inning,” said Lawrence J. Haverty Jr., associate portfolio manager at Gamco Investors Inc. in Rye, New York. Gamco had 825,000 Dow Jones shares as of December. “Dow Jones is a fish in the pond, and there are sharks swimming around.”
Murdoch’s News Corp. yesterday offered $60 a share for Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Dow Jones Newswires. The bid, 65 percent above the previous day’s close, was rejected by Bancroft family members who control more than 50 percent of the voting power at the New York-based publisher.
News Corp. may have opened the door for other bidders, including General Electric Co., owner of the CNBC news network, Haverty said. Washington Post Co., Gannett Co. and even Google Inc. may be interested, said Michael Chren, managing director of Allegiant Asset Management Co. in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
“This is a trophy,” said fund manager Michael Price, whose MFP Investors LLC in Short Hills, New Jersey, manages about $2 billion and owned 351,000 Dow Jones shares as of Dec. 31. “This could be a $100 deal.” More …
