Dow Jones sold for $ 5 billion
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has agreed to buy publishing holding company Dow Jones &
Co, which owns the newspaper The Wall Street Journal. Deal Price - $ 5 billion As reports
Associates Press, early on Wednesday Murdoch's media empire News Corp and Dow Jones have
signed the merger agreement, but before that its consent to the deal provided the main
owners of Dow Jones - Bancroft family, which controlled the company throughout almost one
hundred years.
In the statement, News Corp and Dow Jones said that members of the Bancroft family and
trustees, who own 37% of the voting shares, supported the merger. Together with 29% of
votes held by shareholders who bought shares on the open market and Supporters Murdoch,
the deal will be made.
Both companies claim that the Bancroft family member, or any other suits by candidate
enters the board of directors of News Corp..
Bancroft family was not easy to come to a decision. Many of them fear that with the advent
of the new owner will suffer material quality and independence of the newspaper The Wall
Street Journal, which reaches all business and political elite of the Western world. Some
family members are actively looking for an alternative to Australian magnate, but to no
avail. One of them, Leslie Hill, on Tuesday came out of the board of directors of Dow
Jones, as it became clear that a deal with Murdoch will take place.
Murdoch has long displayed an interest in Dow Jones, but Bancroft did not want to part
with this asset. Ultimately, the tycoon's offer of $ 60 per share - a 65% greater than the
value of shares of Dow Jones, before it became aware of the impending deal - was too
generous to refuse it.
In a statement the two companies states that the transaction value amounted to $ 5.6
billion, but no indication of how the parties came to this figure, it does not. In the
last financial report, Dow Jones said that the company had 83.8 million shares, and Mr
Murdoch proposed a price of $ 60 per share the company should be worth $ 5 billion
According to Murdoch, he is going to buy another two national U.S. newspapers - The New
York Times and USA Today. He also intends to expand the circulation of foreign editions of
The Wall Street Journal and become a serious competitor of the newspaper The Financial
Times, owned by Pearson PLC. At the end of this year, he also plans to launch a cable
television channel for business news in the U.S., which will compete with high-yield
projects CNBC company General Electric. Dow Jones to help him launch this channel, but
before Murdoch will have to terminate agreement with CNBC to use data from Dow Jones until
2012.