Buffett: Dow Jones Bid Not High

Updated from 11:57 a.m. EDT

Legendary value investor Warren Buffett said Monday that News Corp.'s (NWS Quote) $60-a-share offer for Dow Jones (DJ Quote) is "not a high price" for the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

In an interview with CNBC, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A Quote) said the Bancroft family, the controlling shareholders of Dow Jones, could always get $60 a share for the company. The price has been viewed as particularly lofty because it amounted to a 67% premium to where the company's stock stood before the bid became public last week.

"That's not a high price for Dow Jones if you add the psychic income that you get plus the cash income," said Buffett. "So it's not like they're turning down the deal of a lifetime if they turn it down."

Dow Jones raised hackles on Wall Street last week when its board declined to take action on News Corp.'s $5 billion bid for the publisher, citing a majority of opposition to the offer on the part of the company's controlling shareholders. The Bancroft family trust controls 68% of the voting rights at Dow Jones through a dual-class share structure.

News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch has long expressed a desire to own The Journal, but many of the living members of the Bancrofts, whose ancestors built Dow Jones into the most powerful publisher of business and financial news in the world, are reportedly unwilling to sell to the owner of Fox News and the New York Post due to concerns about preserving The Journal's editorial standards.

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