Categories: OLD Media Moves

Dow Jones shareholders expect auction of company

Leon Lazaroff and Cecile Daurat of Bloomberg News write thatÂ News Corp.’sÂ $5 billion offer to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Marketwatch, will spur an auction of the company, according to some of its shareholders.

They wrote, “‘We’re in the first inning,’ said Lawrence J. Haverty Jr., associate portfolio manager at Gamco Investors Inc. in Rye, New York. Gamco had 825,000 Dow Jones shares as of December. ‘Dow Jones is a fish in the pond, and there are sharks swimming around.’

“Murdoch’s News Corp. yesterday offered $60 a share for Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Dow Jones Newswires. The bid, 65 percent above the previous day’s close, was rejected by Bancroft family members who control more than 50 percent of the voting power at the New York-based publisher.

“News Corp. may have opened the door for other bidders, including General Electric Co., owner of the CNBC news network, Haverty said. Washington Post Co., Gannett Co. and even Google Inc. may be interested, said Michael Chren, managing director of Allegiant Asset Management Co. in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.