Categories: OLD Media Moves

Betting that Murdoch gets the votes

Lisa Snedeker of Media Life Magazine writes Wednesday that she’s betting on News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch already having the votes from the Bancroft family to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal.

Snedeker wrote, “And while some Bancrofts have been out looking for other investors, and while discord appears to rage within the family, it now looks as if Murdoch will have his way, getting the votes he needs. The big surprise would be if he loses out when the votes are counted, sometime next week.

“That’s for a simple reason. The board would not have gone to a formal vote without first lining up enough support among the Bancrofts to ensure a favorable tally when they votes were counted.

“If the vote should fail, it would be because the board counted wrong, or at the last minute some votes they were sure of jumped sides and voted with the anti-Murdoch faction.

“The family is set to meet on Monday, and Murdoch will need less than half of the familyâ€™s voting power, or about 30 percent of the total votes, having already secured commitments from a high number of nonfamily stockholders.”

Read more here.

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.