On May 1st, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch unleashed an unsolicited takeover of Dow Jones for $5B, a 67% premium attempt. A lot of people cringed at the notion of Murdoch unleashing his mojo on DJ’s venerable brands Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, but ultimately, few stepped up to the plate.
Sure, Pearson and GE considered it, briefly, but then they balked, even though a combined News Corp./DJ would be a direct onslaught to the former’s The Economist and the latter’s CNBC.
Of course, who could forget Web entrepreneur Brad Greenspan, who sought to inflict payback to Murdoch after Murdoch allegedly and figuratively stole MySpace away from him… but in the end, three months later, the Bancrofts gave in to temptation… there have been many back and forths, but this time, it looks like it’s official.
News Corp./DJ is a fait accompli, or will be some time today.
Murdoch’s got balls, we’ve said that all along, even though we were hoping Murdoch’s pro-war views would catch up with him, despite the fact that we love the fact that he’ll make WSJ.com free. Too bad some of his lieutenants that I worked alongside for a few years have the combined backbone of a poodle.
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