News Corp. May Walk Away From $5B Bid for Dow Jones
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.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. may be preparing to walk away from a $5 billion bid for Dow Jones & Co. after trying without success to win support from the controlling Bancroft family, Pali Research analysts said.
News Corp. “is increasingly frustrated” with the failure of family members to respond to overtures by Mr. Murdoch, Pali’s Richard Greenfield and Mark Smaldon wrote today in a note to investors. Directors of New York-based Dow
Jones took no action on the bid after Bancroft family members said a majority of their shareholder votes would reject the offer of $60 a share.
News Corp., Messrs. Greenfield and Smaldon predicted, would rescind its offer for the publisher of the Wall Street Journal in “the next couple of weeks and leave Dow Jones to fend for itself.” Dow Jones is not a “must-have” for News Corp., and the New York-based company isn’t expected to raise its bid to $80 a share as a way to pressure the family to accept it, they said.
“It is ‘silly’ for News Corp. to simply stand around endlessly waiting for the Bancroft family to change their minds,” New Yorkbased Messrs. Greenfield and Smaldon wrote. Mr. Greenfield, co-head of London- and New York-based Pali Capital Inc.’s Pali Research, rates News Corp. shares “buy.”
A News Corp. spokesman, Andrew Butcher, had no comment on the Pali Research report. Dow Jones spokesman Howard Hoffman also declined to comment.
Members of the Bancroft family control about 64% of Dow Jones’s voting power through Class A and Class B shares while owning about 25% of the stock. News Corp.’s bid values their stake at about $1.23 billion.
When pursuing an acquisition, Mr. Murdoch has tended to stay with a bid rather than walk away from it, said analyst David Joyce with Miller Tabak & Co. in
New York. In the case of Dow Jones, Mr. Joyce said, Mr. Murdoch has made previous efforts to acquire the company, an indication that he plans to pursue it further.
Mr. Murdoch appealed for Bancroft family support in a May 11 letter, promising to protect the editorial independence of the Journal and offering the family a seat on News Corp.’s board. He has been fighting a perception that he meddles in newsroom operations of properties he controls.
Mr. Murdoch said he would establish an independent, autonomous editorial board at the Journal, as he did at The Times of London, which News Corp. owns. The board would also mediate disputes between management and editors, he said.
