Came across something interesting off Valleywag. 

Brad Greenspan is nuts, and we admire him for it. 

Last year he filed a lawsuit against News Corp. and Intermix for essentially letting News Corp. “steal” away MySpace.  He claimed MySpace was worth $10-20 billion, Intermix sold it for $580M.  Mind you, today News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said - via his London Times - that MySpace (and perhaps all of FIM) could be Yahoo!’s in exchange for a 25% stake in Yahoo!  Maybe Brad was right, who knows?

Anyway…

We don’t personally really have anything against Rupert Murdoch despite a misunderstanding last year after I left his company, but we’ve repeatedly called for the Bancrofts to say “no thanks” and even encouraged Pearson and GE to consider making a counter offer for Dow Jones.

Today entered a white knight, perhaps.

Brad Greenspan, who unlike us, does seem to hold a grudge against Mr. Murdoch sent the Bancrofts a letter telling them that he would be bidding $60/share in a Dutch auction for 25% of Dow Jones’ share, or $1.25 billion worth of DJ’s shares.

Not surprisingly, the WSJ runs the story, as does Barron’s.  But if GE and Pearson were willing to buy 80% and leave 20% for the Bancrofts… why not have GE, Pearson each take 27.5% (that’s 55% if you’re counting), then Greenspan’s group can take 25% and the Bancroft’s will have 20%. 

GE and Pearson have strategic interests: the former has CNBC to protect, the latter has both The Economist and Financial Times.  Yet neither are online whizes, yet Greenspan is.

That’s ABR (anyone but Rupert) = 100% and Rupert Murdoch = 0%.

And how does the Board vote?

Imagine if we did hold a grudge against Mr. Murdoch?  I don’t, I really don’t.  In fact, the man does add flair and enigma, doesn’t he?

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