Former Dow Jones CEO Kann writes letter to Bancrofts, saying thanks

Former Dow Jones & Co. CEO Peter Kann, who stepped down from that position at the beginning of 2006, wrote a letter to the Bancroft family that controls a majority of the voting stock in the company to thank them for their opposition to the proposed $5 billion acquisition by News Corp.

Kann, who was once a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, wrote, “I clearly can understand that in rejecting a takeover offer you are foregoing some financial benefit. To that I can only say that you are not alone in seeing other and even higher priorities. There are many people in our larger society who make career and other decisions that do not always maximize financial benefit. And that also is true of many of the people of Dow Jones. Just consider, for example, the many talented reporters and editors who have worked for the Journal over so many years and how many of them could have made so much more money working in law or banking or public relations. Rather, they devoted their careers, and they still do, to something more important — to pursuing a form of public service in a company that has seen itself as a public trust and that has been protected by a family that shares that commitment.

“All of the above is a long way of saying thank you. I realize many of you are under multiple pressures and that the decisions you and your trustees are making are very difficult ones. But please know that there are many of us who have worked for the company, or continue to do so, who admire you for doing what is right. I do.”

Read the rest of the letter, posted on the Journal’s web site, here.