Reply #1: News Corp. may balk at low Bancroft vote

[babylonsister]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/news_corp_may_balk_at_low_banc.php

News Corp. may balk at low Bancroft vote

News Corp. Says It's 'Highly Unlikely' to Proceed at Current Vote Count for Dow Jones

SETH SUTEL
AP News

Jul 30, 2007 14:20 EDT

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. media conglomerate is "highly unlikely" to proceed with its offer to buy Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. if support for the deal remains at its currently reported levels, a News Corp. spokesman said Monday.

News Corp. has offered $60 a share, or $5 billion, to buy the company. Dow Jones' controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, are expected to decide by the close of business on Monday how many of them support the deal.

The Bancrofts collectively control 64 percent of the shareholder vote of Dow Jones through a special class of stock, but only about half of them need to support the deal for it to succeed. The Bancrofts are a diverse clan and their voting interest in the company is held through a complex series of privately held trusts, making the outcome difficult to predict.

Many of Dow Jones' public shareholders are expected to support the deal, which represents a rich premium of about 65 percent over Dow Jones' mid-$30s share price prior to the offer becoming public in early May.

As of late Sunday, some 28 percent of the Bancrofts supported the deal, the Journal reported on Monday, but a News Corp. spokesman told the paper that the company was "highly unlikely" to proceed with the deal at that level of support. A News Corp. spokesman confirmed the remarks.

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