Observer » Christopher Bancroft

Bancrofts Blow 5 p.m. Deadline

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:31:21 -0400

You might think that a family journalism dynasty would be more conscious of deadlines—but alas, the Bancrofts have already blown News Corp.’s 5 p.m. cutoff.

Family advisors and Dow Jones board members tried convincing holdout family members to accept Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion bid, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But, apparently, the votes just aren’t there yet. Christopher Bancroft, the most outspoken family member against the deal, was traveling from a meeting with Hemenway & Barnes in Boston back to Dallas, which pushed back a 5 p.m. meeting with the Dow Jones board's ad hoc committee

Earlier today, “a News Corp. spokesman to say yesterday that the company is ‘highly unlikely’ to proceed with its offer for Dow Jones if the proposal doesn't get more support from the Bancroft family.” Recent reports estimate that about 28%—out of the 64% that the family controls—currently supports the bid.

Tomorrow, News Corp.’s board of directors will meet to decide whether to go forward with a full shareholder vote. The amount of family support should greatly impact that decision.

Key Bancroft Now Opposes Dow Jones Deal; Greenspan Offer Still on the Table

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:32:52 -0400

One previously undecided member of the Bancroft family, who votes about 15 percent of Dow Jones shares, has come out against a deal to sell the company to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., The Wall Street Journal reports.

Jane Cox MacElree, whose daughter, Leslie Hill, brought Brad Greenspan and Ron Burkle's counterproposal before the board of directors of the company, is said to have stated her position during family meetings begun in Boston yesterday.

Her brother, William Cox Jr., has also been reported to oppose the sale, as has Christopher Bancroft. But the position of his two siblings, also voters, was unclear.

Elizabeth Steele and Michael Elefante spoke in favor of the deal in yesterday's meetings. But it has not been reported whether Ms. Steele's two sisters, also support a News Corp. deal.

Reports from the meeting also indicated that Ms. Hill has been able to keep the Greenspan offer on the table. Mr. Greenspan is the founder of MySpace, which was bought by News Corp. in July 2005. Mr. Greenspan has attempted to file suit against News Corp. for undervaluing the site during the purchase by billions of dollars, but the suit was dismissed by a judge.

But analysts largely dismissed the viability of the Greenspan deal yesterday, saying that it would require non-Bancroft shareholders to bail out the Bancroft family shareholders for an indefinite period of time.

The Magnificent Bancrofts: Giant Dow Jones Family Breaking Up Over Sale

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:57:28 -0400

Today's Wall Street Journal has some valuable retread over the events at Tuesday night's meeting between representatives of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and the board of directors of Dow Jones Inc., which is considering selling itself to the Australian-born media mogul.

There was acrimony: In the opening minutes of the meeting, while Dow Jones board chair M. Peter McPherson was making a presentation about the Murdoch bid to the board, Christopher Bancroft, who has been trying to find investors to help him buy out other Bancrofts who might be inclined to vote for the sale, interrupted to ask whether he should leave, since he was actively trying to scuttle the bid. The directors huddled and said, 'yes,' and he left, ultimately abstaining from the vote.

There was heartbreak: Elizabeth Steele, whose branch of the family was seen early on as likely to oppose a sale, gave a speech:

In an emotional statement to the board Tuesday night, Ms. Steele said the company had been in her family for 100 years and that she "never thought we would get to this point." She told directors that she would never know how safe the paper would be in Mr. Murdoch's hands, but that after examining the overall business conditions of the newspaper industry, it was better to sell the paper now than to wait, these people said.

So when all 35 Bancrofts meet in the offices of their longtime legal representatives, the firm of Hemenway & Barnes in Boston, expect more of the same.

Meanwhile, preparations for a deal march on, with representatives from News Corp. and Dow Jones already vetting a list of names for the five-person editorial-independence oversight board the two companies agreed to form if a deal went through.

Among potential candidates being considered by News Corp. and Dow Jones are: Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general of the U.S. and partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington D.C. office; Jack Fuller, former president of Tribune Publishing and a director of the board of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Thomas Bray, the former editorial-page editor of the Detroit News and a writer for OpinionJournal.com; and Susan Hockfield, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was unclear how many of the candidates had been approached, if any, about the board. The candidates under consideration couldn't be reached for comment.