Rupert Murdoch's bid for Dow Jones and Co ran into more resistance on Sunday as a large Dow Jones shareholder said he strongly opposed News Corp's bid to take over the financial news publisher, which owns the Wall Street Journal.
Jim Ottaway, a former Dow Jones board member, said on the Journal's Web site that a Murdoch takeover would lead to the "loss of the independence and integrity of a leading national editorial voice."
"Rupert Murdoch comes from a different tradition of Australian-British media ownership and editorial practice in which he has for a long time expressed his personal, political and business biases through his newspapers and television channels," Ottaway said. "The Bancroft family has treated Dow Jones as a public trust, not for personal or political interests, or maximum enhancement of family wealth by sale to a high bidder."
Ottaway said he also opposed a sale to Murdoch because it would further concentrate media ownership and influence.
The US$5 billion bid for Dow Jones from Murdoch's News Corp has already been opposed by Dow Jones' controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, but the family is not united in its stance.
Dow Jones has said a family representative indicated that Bancroft family members representing 52 percent of the company's shareholder vote would oppose the bid -- not quite all of the family's voting power of 64 percent.
The opposition of Ottaway, whose family controls about 6.2 percent of Dow Jones's supervoting shares, would make it tougher for Murdoch to gain control of Dow Jones.
Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has sold its entire 7.5 percent stake in rival Australian company Fairfax Media for around A$380 million (US$312 million), both companies said yesterday.
Reasons for the sale were not given.
Fairfax chairman Ron Walker said News Corp had informed the company that it had sold its 75 million shares at a price of A$5.07. News Corp confirmed the sale.
Fairfax shares fell 2.66 percent yesterday to close at A$5.13.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS