The momentum for a takeover of one of the world's premier financial newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, gained speed Monday with news that General Electric (GE) company had joined discussions with London's Financial Times (FT) for a deal, according to dpa. The news of GE's interest in the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones, was reported Monday by the Journal itself and The New York Times. Under the proposal, the Bancroft family, which hold majority shares, would drop down to a minority interest and cede 40 to 45 per cent to each of the other two parties - to the Pearson company that publishes FT, and to GE. The news of Pearson's interest emerged on Friday. Dow Jones was already in the target scope of Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp made a 5-billion-dollar bid for the operations in recent weeks. The Bancroft family, which has controlled Dow Jones with majority shares, originally rejected the Murdoch overture, then indicated interest in that offer or other offers. However, concern has been expressed in the media community about what a Murdoch takeover could mean for the quality of the high profile, extremely well-researched Journal. Under the new scenario, GE's CNBC business channel, the FT and Dow Jones would be combined into a privately held joint venture, the reports said. The talks between GE and Pearson were exploratory and may collapse, the report said. The Bancroft family said last week that it is still working on a proposal to send to Murdoch's News Corp that would protect the newspaper's editorial independence. CNBC, the business news cable-television channel owned by GE's NBC Universal, subscribes to Wall Street Journal's content. News Corp was planning to start a rival business news channel later this year that would also compete with Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg financial news service reported. Earlier this month, NBC Universal and Microsoft Corp. said they held exploratory talks about a bid for Dow Jones, but they never went further.
