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,” an associate portfolio manager at Gamco Investors Inc. in Rye, N.Y., Lawrence Haverty Jr., said. Gamco had 825,000 Dow Jones shares as of December. “Dow Jones is a fish in the pond, and there are sharks swimming around.”

Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp. Tuesday offered $60 a share for Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and Dow Jones Newswires. The bid, 65% above the previous day’s close, was rejected by Bancroft family members who control more than 50% 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, Mr. Haverty said. Washington Post Co., Gannett Co., and even Google Inc. may be interested, the managing director of Allegiant Asset Management Co. in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., Michael Chren, said.

Reuters Group Plc, the world’s largest publicly traded provider of financial data, would be interested in some Dow Jones assets, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

“This is a trophy,” a fund manager at MFP Investors LLC in Short Hills, N.J., that manages about $2 billion and owned 351,000 Dow Jones shares as of December 31, Michael Price, said. “This could be a $100 deal.”

Dow Jones shares fell 20 cents to $56 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, after surging 55% Tuesday. Class A shares of New York-based News Corp., owner of Fox News, Fox Television, and Twentieth Century Fox, rose 14 cents to $21.59.

GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., isn’t interested in buying Dow Jones, the chief executive officer, Jeffrey Immelt, said Tuesday in a brief interview in Boston. The chief financial officer of the Washington Post, John Morse, wouldn’t comment. Aspokesman for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, Jon Murchinson, declined to comment, as did Tara Connell, spokeswoman for McLean, Va.- based Gannett.

“This is a big, generous offer,” Mr. Murdoch, 76, said in an interview on his Fox News Channel yesterday. The bid is too high for private-equity buyers, he said.

Mr. Murdoch, who described the Bancrofts as “great guardians” of the Wall Street Journal, said he planned to meet with the family within weeks.

Bancroft family members will dictate any sale. They control about 64% of the voting power through Class A and Class B shares, while owning about 25% of the company, and indicated a majority opposes Mr. Murdoch.

Family members “will vote shares constituting slightly more than 50 percent of the outstanding voting power of Dow Jones” against Mr. Murdoch’s bid, Dow Jones said Tuesday in a statement. That’s at least 78% of the voting power that is in the hands of the family, which has controlled the newspaper since 1902.

The statement indicated some family members are willing to sell, a division that means a transaction remains possible, said Brendan Buckley, an analyst at Fitch Ratings in New York.

“They’re very fragmented,” Mr. Buckley said. “I definitely do believe that they’re going to weigh every bid very seriously.”

News Corp.’s bid values the Bancroft family’s stake at about $1.23 billion. Christopher Bancroft and cousins Elizabeth Steele and Leslie Hill, a retired airline pilot, are on the board. Bancroft and Steele didn’t return calls seeking comment.

Bloomberg LP may also be interested, said Peter Kreisky, president of Kreisky Media Consultancy in New York.

“We haven’t made a bid and we don’t plan to,” a spokeswoman for New York-based Bloomberg LP, owner of Bloomberg News, Judith Czelusniak, said. Bloomberg competes with Dow Jones in providing financial news and information.

Mr. Murdoch’ s offer represents about 17 times Dow Jones’s projected 2007 profit, based on estimates by Prudential Equity Group analyst Steven Barlow in New York. Newspapers have been selling at 10 times to 11 times earnings, Barlow said. Sam Zell’s proposed acquisition of Chicago-based Tribune Co. was at 10 times projected 2007 earnings.