News Corp yesterday confirmed that it would buy Dow Jones for $5.6 billion (€4.1 billion), adding the Wall Street Journal to its worldwide media empire and ending a century of family ownership of one of the top US business news sources.
The hard-fought deal after long negotiations and intense wrangling among members of Dow Jones's controlling shareholder, the Bancroft family, helps News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch achieve his decades-long dream of running the venerable financial daily.
The Journal and other Dow Jones properties also add to Murdoch's sprawling media empire - from the Fox television stations and MySpace online social network, to the Times of London and HarperCollins Publishers - and would aid the launch of a Fox business channel later this year.
In a joint statement, Dow Jones and News Corp said Bancroft family members holding about 37 per cent of Dow Jones's voting power agreed to support the deal.
That level of support represents more than half of the 64 percent voting shares held by the family. Dow Jones shareholders still must approve the buyout, an outcome that analysts have said is all but guaranteed, given the 65 per cent premium Murdoch offered.
Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by the boards of both the companies, Dow Jones shareholders will receive $60 in cash for each share of common stock or Class B common stock that they own, the companies said.
One Bancroft family member or another "mutually acceptable person" will be appointed to the News Corp board, the companies said. They also agreed on a five-member committee to oversee the editorial independence of Dow Jones's news operations. - (Reuters)
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