Cramer: Murdoch was willing to pay $74 for Dow Jones a decade ago

“Mad Money” host Jim Cramer writes for the latest issue of New York magazine that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch was willing to pay $74 a share for DOw Jones & Co., the owner of The Wall Street Journal, more than a decade ago. His offer of $60 a share is now being considered.

Cramer wrote, “When we met, the man asked me what I thought Dow Jones was worth. At the time, the stock was trading in the mid-30s. I said the franchise could be worth $73 to $74 a share. Before I could even present my backup, I remember him saying, ‘I’ll pay that.’ No blinking—$40 more than the stock was trading at. He even talked about the possibility of getting a line of credit from Chase to do the deed.

“I told him that the family had no desire to sell, and that the family’s law firm might not even show a bid from him to the Bancrofts. He sneered and informed me that one day they would. On May 1, Murdoch made a surprise bid for Dow Jones of $60 per share, or about $5 billion. Eleven years after our meeting, the hunter had come back for his prey. And from the looks of things, he might get it, and for much less than he was willing to pay back then.

“No, the Bancrofts still don’t want to sell to him, but much has changed, most of it of Dow Jones’ own doing, and the chance to stay independent has now been squandered. First, while Dow Jones, the average, has more than doubled since my Murdoch meeting, Dow Jones, the stock, has done almost nothing during that time. That’s a point-blank indictment of management. Few groups of companies have grown faster than those that provide data and information services to all the hedge funds, mutual funds, and brokerage firms out there. But Dow Jones hasn’t kept pace with the other Joneses.”

Read more here.