News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said any deal with Dow Jones & Co. would likely be resolved in the next two or three weeks, or “not at all.”
“Everything is done. We are just waiting for a final approval of the Bancroft family,” Mr. Murdoch told Reuters during a visit to Warsaw. “The final approval is in the next two, three weeks’ time or not at all,” he added. Although the prospect of Mr. Murdoch walking away from a deal has always been present during these negotiations, a person close to News Corp. said the comment wasn’t meant as an ultimatum.A spokesman for Dow Jones declined to comment on Mr. Murdoch’s remarks.
News Corp., which is offering $5 billion for the owner of The Wall Street Journal, has reached an agreement in principle with Dow Jones on editorial protections for the company, according to people familiar with the matter. There are still a few “open items” to be resolved, and the two sides haven’t worked out the terms of an overall deal, these people said. Any deal would need to be approved by the Bancroft family, which controls 64% of Dow Jones’s voting stock and has been ambivalent about a sale.
Dow Jones management is planning to give detailed presentations on the company to News Corp. today, a discussion that could last several days and is likely to lead the parties to a negotiation on price, these people said. Mr. Murdoch told Reuters he wasn’t planning on raising his $60-a-share offer for Dow Jones, but Dow Jones advisers and management are likely to try to press for better terms from Mr. Murdoch, these people said.
So far, the two sides haven’t formally broached the topic of an adjustment to the price. Even as Dow Jones edges closer to a deal with News Corp., the company is continuing to meet with other interested parties, such as Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan. Mr. Greenspan, a onetime CEO of the parent company of social-networking site MySpace, which is now a unit of News Corp., plans to meet with representatives of Dow Jones and the Bancroft family today. He is leading an investor group that is proposing to buy 25% of Dow Jones for $60 a share and make an additional $250 million investment in the company.
In 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday, Dow Jones shares were down 21 cents to $58.56.
