Dow Jones & Company

"Dow Jones" redirects here. For the stock market index commonly referred to as the "Dow Jones", see Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Dow Jones & Company Inc.
Subsidiary of News Corp.
Industry News and Publishing
Founded 15 Wall Street, New York
(1882 (1882))
Founder Charles Dow, Edward Jones, Charles Bergstresser
Headquarters 1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
U.S.
Key people
 William Lewis (CEO)[1][2]
Products
Revenue Increase$1.5 billion USD (2009)
Increase$386.56 million USD (2009)
Parent News Corp
Website dowjones.com

Dow Jones & Company is an American publishing and financial information firm that has been owned by News Corp. since 2007.

The company was best known for the publication of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and related market statistics, Dow Jones Newswire and a number of financial publications. In 2010 the Dow Jones Indexes subsidiary was sold to the CME Group and the company focused on financial news publications, including its flagship publication The Wall Street Journal and providing financial news and information tools to financial companies.

The company was led by the Bancroft family, which held 64% of voting stock, from the 1920s until 2007 when an extended takeover battle saw News Corp take control of the company.

History

The company was founded in 1882 by three reporters: Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser.

Dow Jones was acquired in 1902 by the leading financial journalist of the day, Clarence Barron after the death of co-founder Charles Dow.[3] Upon Barron's death in 1928, control of the company passed to his stepdaughters Jane and Martha Bancroft. The company was led by the Bancroft family, which effectively controlled 64% of all voting stock, until 2007 when an extended takeover battle saw News Corporation acquire the business.

The company became a subsidiary of News Corporation after an extended takeover bid during 2007.[4] It was reported on August 1, 2007 that the bid had been successful[5][6] after an extended period of uncertainty about shareholder agreement.[7] The transaction was completed on December 13, 2007. It was worth US$5 billion or $60 a share, giving News Corp control of The Wall Street Journal and ending the Bancroft family's 105 years of ownership.[8]

In 2010, the company sold 90% of Dow Jones Indexes to the CME Group, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Products

Consumer media

Its flagship publication, The Wall Street Journal, is a daily newspaper in print and online covering business, financial national and international news and issues around the globe. It began publishing on July 8, 1889. There are 12 versions of the Journal in nine languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Bahasa, Turkish and Korean. The Journal holds 35 Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism.[9]

Other consumer-oriented publications of Dow Jones include Barron's Magazine, a weekly overview of the world economy and markets and MarketWatch, the online financial news site. Financial News[10] provides news on investment banking, securities, and asset management. BigCharts,[11] provided by MarketWatch's Virtual Stock Exchange Games,[12] includes stock charts, screeners, interactive charting, and research tools. Professor Journal,[13] is a "Journal" in education program for professors to integrate into curriculum.

The monthly journal Far Eastern Economic Review closed in September 2009.

Dow Jones also owns Local Media Group, which publishes several community newspapers in the U.S.

Enterprise media

Dow Jones serves corporate markets and financial markets clients with financial news and information products and services. Its products combine content and technology tools to help drive decisions. Dow Jones owns more than 20 products that combine content and technology to help drive decisions which include;

Dow Jones Newswires

Dow Jones Newswires is the real-time financial news organization founded in 1882, its primary competitors are Bloomberg L.P. and Thomson Reuters. The company reports more than 600,000 subscribers — including brokers, traders, analysts, world leaders and finance officials and fund managers — as of July 2011.

Logo of the Dow Jones Newswires

Ventures

In 2009 Dow Jones Ventures launched FINS.com, a standalone resource for financial professionals with information about finance careers and the finance industry.

Broadcasting

In broadcasting, Dow Jones provides news content to CNBC in the U.S. It produces two shows for commercial radio, The Wall Street Journal Report on the Wall Street Journal Radio Network and The Dow Jones Report.

Dow Jones also launched WSJ Live an interactive video website that provides live and on demand videos from The Wall Street Journal Video Network. Programs include "News Hub", "MoneyBeat", and "Lunch Break" among others.

Indices

Main article: S&P Dow Jones Indices

Dow Jones sold a 90% stake in its Index business for $607.5M to Chicago-based CME Group, which owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, in February 2010.[14] A few of the most widely used include:

Ownership

The company's foundation was laid by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser who, over two decades, conceived and promoted the three products which define Dow Jones and financial journalism: The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.[3]

Dow Jones was acquired in 1902 by the leading financial journalist of the day, Clarence Barron.[3]

In 2007 Dow Jones was acquired by News Corp., a leading global media company.[3]

The Bancroft family and heirs of Clarence W. Barron effectively controlled the company's class B shares, each with a voting power of ten regular shares, prior to its sale to News Corp. At one time, they controlled 64% of Dow Jones voting stock.[15]

Buyout offer

On May 1, 2007, Dow Jones released a statement confirming that News Corporation, led by Rupert Murdoch, had made an unsolicited offer of $60 per share, or $5 billion, for Dow Jones.[16] Stock was briefly halted for pending press release. The halt lasted under 10 minutes while CNBC was receiving data. It has been suggested that the buyout offer is related to Murdoch's new cable business news channel Fox Business that launched in 2007. The Dow Jones brand brings instant credibility to the project.[17]

On June 6, 2007, CEO Brian Tierney of Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., owning company of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, went public in an article on Philly.com expressing interest in "joining with outside partners to buy Dow Jones." Tierney said, "We would participate as Philadelphia Media Holdings, along with other investors. We wouldn't do it alone."[18]

In June, MySpace founder Brad Greenspan put forth a bid to buy 25% of the Dow for $60 a share, the same price per share as News Corporation's bid. Greenspan's offer was for $1.25 billion for 25% of the company.[19]

On July 17, 2007, The Wall Street Journal, a unit of Dow Jones, reported that the company and News Corporation had agreed in principle on a US$5 billion takeover, that the offer would be put to the full Dow Jones board on the same evening in New York, and that the offer valued the company at 70% more than the company's market value.[20]

"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 100 dollars a share,

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.

The time has come for Dow Jones to break out of its slumber and extend its dominance into the lucrative arena of digital media."

— Channel News Asia Business Section—[21]

Insider trading scandal

Upon investigating suspicious share price movements in the run-up to the announcement, the SEC alleged that board member Sir David Li, one of Hong Kong's most prominent businessmen, had informed his close friend and business associate Michael Leung of the impending offer. Leung had acted on this information by telling his daughter and son-in-law, who reaped an US$8.2 million profit from the transaction.[22]

Corporate governance

Prior to its sale to News Corp, the last members of the board of directors of the company were: Christopher Bancroft, Lewis B. Campbell, Michael Elefante, John Engler, Harvey Golub, Leslie Hill, Irvine Hockaday, Peter Kann, David Li, M. Peter McPherson (Chairman), Frank Newman, James Ottaway, Elizabeth Steele, and William Steere.

See also

References

External links

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