The board of directors of Dow Jones will take over the negotiations on the future of the company, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. The Journal says that the describes the board as “frustrated by the Bancrof family’s foot dragging in its negotiations with News Corp.”
This new move by the board, which had taken a deferential stance to the Bancroft family until today, makes it far more likely that Rupert Murdoch’s New Corp will buy succeed in buying the company.
“In recent weeks, members of the Bancroft family had grown wary of any deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and had been laboring over a proposal to safeguard the editorial independence of Dow Jones,” the Journal’s Sarah Ellison writes. “But as the family's negotiations with each other and their advisers continued with no resolution in sight, the company's directors were growing increasingly concerned that by not responding to Mr. Murdoch, the family was endangering the negotiations.”
The Murdoch Meter has jumped up another five points to show a 90% chance that News Corp will buy the company.
Dow Jones Board Takes Over Talks [Wall Street Journal]
Posted by George, Jun 20, 2007 6:50PM
Here is an interesting post from May 1 on the www.NewsVisual.com site alalyzing News Corp's relationships with Dow Jones:
--Boards of News Corp and Dow Jones are Deeply Routed--
In the midst of a possible acquisition, a visual Knowledge Map automatically generated by IntellectSpace shows how deeply routed News Corp and Dow Jones truly are. Examples of Board intersections include:
News Corp Board Member John Thornton intersects with David Li (via PCCW), Irvine Hockaday (via Ford), and Donald Peterson (via Ford) - each of whom either serve or have served as Board Members of Dow Jones
Peter Chernin and Hamish Maxwell of News Corp intersect with Harvey Golub, Vernon Jordan and Frank Newman of Dow Jones through American Express and the Banker's Trust.
To see an interactive version of this Knowledge Map, click on the link below or paste the following URL into your Internet Explorer browser (other browsers are not supported at this time):
http://fn.intellectspace.com/ispace/GuestMonitor.aspx?id=56889998-6107-4320-bdf9-ab752bfc8a11