An Internet entrepreneur who last month bid for a stake in Dow Jones & Co on Friday made a new offer aimed at helping controlling family shareholders find an alternative to an offer from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
The announcement from Brad Greenspan, founder of the MySpace social network Web site, came after Dow Jones's board members accepted Murdoch's NT$5 billion bid that was to be debated by the Bancroft family, which controls a majority voting stake.
Greenspan's revised offer calls for his investment group to provide a loan of between US$400 million and US$600 million to Bancroft family members "to buy out liquidity-seeking family members" at US$60 per share -- matching the Murdoch offer.
This would allow the family to retain control. Greenspan's group "would receive the rights to all value created in the stock above US$60 per share."
recapitalization
The plan also calls for a recapitalization of the company by issuing debt and expanding into a number of online ventures to benefit from the brand name of Dow Jones and its key asset, the Wall Street Journal.
"Our strategy centers around leaving the print publications of Dow Jones intact to continue serving as the gold standard of financial reporting and creating additional earnings streams through digital media initiatives that can produce a stock price above US$100 a share," he said in a statement.
"For too long, Dow Jones has limited its focus to the world of print media and allowed other, less established entities to generate millions of dollars in profits by developing financial reporting franchises on the Internet and cable television," he said.
Greenspan said his investment group would get two board seats and help establish new joint ventures, including a US-based online video network, a financial news TV channel, and video and television operations for Asia, Europe, Australia and South Africa.
"The time has come for Dow Jones to break out of its slumber and extend its dominance into the lucrative arena of digital media," he said.
Last month, Greenspan said he and other investors were bidding for a 25 percent stake in Dow Jones.
Greenspan reportedly held talks with Dow Jones board members along with Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle, but no formal proposal emerged from that.
Dow Jones announced early on Wednesday that its board had voted to approve the US$5 billion buyout offer by News Corp.
Despite the board's endorsement, the success of Murdoch's months-long quest for Dow Jones and its prize asset, the Wall Street Journal, remains far from certain.
hostile
The deal requires the approval of the firm's shareholders, including the Bancroft family which owns 64 percent of the voting power of the company.
Some family members are openly hostile to the takeover bid and so far have failed in their efforts to find an alternative.
The Bancroft family is to meet tomorrow to consider the matter.
On Thursday, Dieter von Holtzbrinck, an heir to a German publishing empire, resigned from Dow Jones' board to protest the decision to endorse the News Corp offer, according to a letter released by the Wall Street Journal.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
RSS