Categories: OLD Media Moves

Dow Jones board move signals rift with Bancroft family

The decision by the Dow Jones & Co. board to take over negotiations with News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and other potential bidders for the company that owns The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Marketwatch signals a growing rift between the Bancroft family that controls the company and the business itself, writes Sarah Ellison of The Journal.

Ellison wrote, “The move, approved by the the four board members affiliated with the Bancrofts — three family members and their attorney — is likely to speed any deal between News Corp. and Dow Jones, the owner of The Wall Street Journal, and highlights a growing rift between Bancroft family members and the company they control.

“In recent weeks, members of the Bancroft family had grown wary of any deal with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., and had been laboring over a proposal to safeguard the editorial independence of Dow Jones. But as the family’s negotiations with each other and their advisors continued with no resolution in sight, the company’s directors were growing increasingly concerned that by not responding to Mr. Murdoch, the family was endangering the negotiations.”

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Lucas Sarkisian says:
June 21, 2007 at 7:41 am
For the companies involved in mergers, the merger deal more often than not turns out to be a bad deal for both firms involved. The reason they keep happening is that executives without a major ownership stake resentful of "coupon clipping owners" as the folks running Dow Jones are of the Bancrofts, look for the golden parachute they get in any buyout. The reasoning being that they can make 10 or 20 years income on one deal and then go on to loot some other company. Clearly, the Bancrofts should have been more hands on in corporate management, and used some of the dividend income to buy stock when the stock was cheap.