If Rupert Murdoch prevails in his quest for Dow Jones, he will kill many birds with $5B stones. He’ll have:
- acquired the strongest brand in the world of finance (no disrespect intended to either Financial Times or The Economist).
- strengthened his hand against GE’s CNBC.
- won over the largest base of paid subscribers of any offline publication online.
- managed to win over all of the naysayers, after a combination of players sought to derail his plans to secure the sought after asset.
But, if he does not win over the Bancrofts, without whom the DJ deal will not materialize, then he can look for many likely suitors. Apparently, Mr. Murdoch is hunting for digital deals, according to a story in the FT.com, owned by Pearson, also in the running for DJ. This only means that Murdoch’s lieutenants are working overtime this weekend to scour the Web for opportunities, and since some of his lieutenants were so cordial with yours truly when I left his firm, here’s a list of potential players that he can make a run for, some of the market cap figures are outdated (this is from the Gobble or be Gobbled post from a month ago), but most of the revenue, income figures are relevant and most, if not all of the firms listed, remain in play.
Incidentally, some of these are great picks:
1. Napster + MySpace = wonderful fit. Ironic since News Corp. is one of the few old media (can we still call NWS an old media firm?) with no music label etc., this would be a great match.
2. Audible + Harper Collins = intriguing to consider.
3. Netflix’s Audience + IGN’s Digital Distribution = a lot of strategic value. I don’t know how much Netflix is positioning itself for digital distribution, but if my days at IGN remind me of anything, it’s that the technology IGN bought from GameSpy in terms of digital distribution could have a considerable value unlocked if unleashed over Netflix’ audience.
4. Looksmart’s Australian fit, if nothing else, deserves a conversation.
5. Answers.com is a good match, for Answers.com, more than anything else. Allow me to explain, it’s a great tool, but since it gets the bulk of its traffic from Google, by way of Google’s upper-right link on all of its search results page, any sale of Answers.com means the risk of Google cutting it off, but since Google is paying $900M for News Corp.’s FIM’s search business, Google would probably welcome Answers.com becoming a part of FIM.
6. FT.com talks about Valueclick, but at $3B it’s pricey. Also, what was Strategic Data bought for, again?
Going up that list…
7. CNET + IGN would be a bold and brash move. The FTC probably won’t know what it’s all about, but that would corner the video game market (CNET owns Gamespot; IGN owns Gamespy and, well, IGN).
8. TheStreet.com could be helpful in Murdoch’s battle against CNBC, though a few years ago FOX had a lawsuit against Cramer (or the other way around). Of course, CNBC hosts Cramer’s show. My gut is that CNBC or News Corp. might eventually buy TSCM, anyway, but I don’t think there’s a major rush there either.
9. Last but not least, Roo Group is a major player in video, and News Corp. (Jeremy Philips’ division, not FIM) owns 5% in options with the option to buy 5% more. I could see that being a shot in the arm of News Corp.’s online syndication video business.
Of course, that’s just a list of publicly traded firms, here are some highly sought after private firms.
Allrighty, I own shares in some of these companies, so please do your homework before thinking that I know what I’m talking about… I’m also, by way of Mojo Supreme, running a lot of operations that either work, compete etc., with these companies, so again, this is for entertainment purposes and not intended to be anything remotely resembling stock advice.
Digg this Blog
Share on Facebook
WatchMojo on Twitter
WatchMojo on YouTube
Add to Favorites
WatchMojo Newsletter
