The Four Horsemen
Some of you might recall that after eUniverse - renamed Intermix - launched MySpace, it got into some problems with the SEC and its board forced CEO Brad Greenspan to resign. Greenspan remained a big shareholder, but the Board brought in Richard Rosenblatt to run the company. Rosenblatt is the executive (with an impressive track record in social media dating back to the late 1990s) who ended up selling Intermix to News Corp. for $580M. Rosenblatt orchestrated the deal with his counterpart over at News Corp, Ross Levinsohn, who was responsible for building up News Corp.’s digital strategy for Chairman Rupert Murdoch. continue reading...
If you thought financing rounds were raising eyebrows, here’s a prediction, it’s about to get a lot more interesting, and competitive, starting… now. Part of the reason why is that exits are about to get more competitive.
Tech Crunch points to a press release that $15 billion hedge fund General Atlantic is backing Jon Miller - former CEO of Time Warner’s AOL - and Ross Levinsohn - former CEO of News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media’s roll-up fund. We’d heard a lot about these roll-up funds, and now we’re seeing that move from concept to reality. The challenge, now, is the execution. continue reading...
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. continue reading...
Brad Greenspan, the former founder of Intermix, is trying to derail Rupert Murdoch’s $5B bid for Dow Jones.
I came across this on Paid Content, here’s his open letter to shareholders, in it, he concedes: continue reading...
