Click to play videoNew Delhi: Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is all set to purchase Dow Jones and Co, publishers of the Wall Street Journal, for USD 5 billion, ending the century-long ownership of the Bancroft family.
It was his decades-long dream of running the venerable Wall Street Journal. Murdoch now has enough support from the deeply divided Bancroft family to win the controlling interest in a vote by shareholders expected later this year.
The boards of both companies voted Tuesday night to approve the deal. The development came at the end of three-month drama during which Bancroft family dithered, sent mixed signals and debated whether the new owners will able to maintain journalistic values and editorial freedom.
One of the oldest and best-known franchises in the newspaper industry, beset in recent years by business pressures, will now enters a new era as part of a world-wide media conglomerate, the Journal said.
For Murdoch, the verdict represents the pinnacle of his long career building the News Corporation into a USD 28 billion media empire that already includes more than 100 newspapers worldwide, satellite broadcast operations, the Fox television network, the online social networking site MySpace and many other parts, the New York Times reported.
76-year-old Murdoch negotiated hard to win the paper he long coveted. He has promised to invest more in Dow Jones journalism.
The family initially rejected Murdoch's bid over fears that he would tarnish the Journal's image and use Dow Jones's news operations to further his business interests. Many Journal reporters, and Dow Jones employees, also opposed the deal and sought to attract other buyers.
In the end, his $60-per-share offer proved too attractive for many family members to resist, and it all but eliminated the possibility of competing offers.
"It's a sad thing that the 105-year family tradition of protecting Dow Jones's independence as a public trust will end," former Dow Jones board member and executive Jim Ottaway Jr., whose family controls 7 percent of Dow Jones voting shares was quoted by CNN.com.
Dow Jones, which competes with Reuters Group, also owns the Barron's financial weekly, the MarketWatch.com financial news Web site and Dow Jones Newswires.
With inputs from a CNN.com report
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