Dow Jones execs want to stay, but 170 WSJ subscribers leave

Martin Peers of The Wall Street Journal writes Thursday that Dow Jones & Co. executives such as CEO Richard Zannino and Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz want to remain after the deal to sell the company to News Corp. closes.

However, 170 subscribers of the Journal are not waiting for the deal to close. They canceled their subscription, Peers wrote, citing the pending News Corp. ownership.

Peers also wrote, “Dow Jones is contemplating a possible deal under which Dow Jones would pay the legal fees of holdout shareholder Christopher Bancroft in exchange for Mr. Bancroft not blocking a trust he oversees from voting to approve the sale. That trust holds 13.2% of Dow Jones’s voting power, so such a deal would increase to 50.6% the amount of family-voting power that favors the deal.

“Antitrust approval isn’t expected to be hard to get. The merger is expected to close in three months, Dow Jones Chief Executive Richard Zannino told employees yesterday.

“News Corp. executives are expected to spend that time pondering strategies for Dow Jones’s businesses and the makeup of management. There has been speculation Mr. Murdoch may want to name Times of London editor Robert Thomson to a senior role, helping to oversee the Journal. A person close to News Corp. said Mr. Thomson is likely to ‘play a part’ at the Journal but it wasn’t clear exactly how.”

Read more here.