Bancroft vote called too close to call

A group of Wall Street Journal reporters wrote for Wednesday’s paper that the Bancroft family that controls Dow Jones & Co. is still too divided to determine if they will agree to sell the company to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch for $5 billion.

They wrote, “The company’s advisers reckon that family-owned shares representing 30% of Dow Jones’s overall voting power must be voted in favor of the News Corp. transaction for it to go through. The family controls 64% of Dow Jones’s voting power. The calculation assumes that nonfamily shareholders would overwhelmingly back the deal.

“The Bancrofts’ predicament has become a wrenching test of loyalties, including parents’ choices among children and the upholding of tradition against obligation to future generations. Now the family could be splintered by the company that once brought it together.

“Of the family’s three main branches, the Cox branch — which includes Ms. MacElree — is perhaps the most divided. Two of Ms. MacElree’s sons favor a sale to Mr. Murdoch, while the third is leaning against, say people familiar with their thinking. Her four daughters mostly are aligned with their mother against the deal, according to people who have talked to them.”

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