Dow Jones Shares Up on Reports It’s for Sale
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Shares of Dow Jones & Company surged 11% yesterday following a report that younger members of the Bancroft family, the company’s majority owner, may want to sell the company.
Without naming sources, the New York Post reported that “younger family members are said to want an outright sale of the Dow Jones empire, which analysts believe would more than double the value of the family’s shares overnight.”
A longtime trustee and adviser of the Bancroft family, Roy Hammer, told Dow Jones Newswires that he’s not aware that any family members “are interested in selling the company at this time.
“I would have to know about it,” he added. “They don’t control enough shares [outside of the trusts] to be of interest to someone looking to acquire the company.”
A Dow Jones spokeswoman, Amy Wolfcale, said the company had no comment.
The Post article, citing an unnamed partner at an investment fund with a stake in Dow Jones, said the Bancrofts would prefer arranging a private sale to billionaire investor Warren Buffett for more than $6.6 billion, more than double the publisher’s market capitalization. A representative from Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company Mr. Buffett heads, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The article also speculated that the Washington Post, where Buffett is a major investor, also could be an interested acquirer of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. A Washington Post spokeswoman, Rima Calderon, declined to comment.