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Dow Jones Put to Bed

Nat Worden

Dow Jones' (DJ) shareholders cast just over 60% of the company's voting power in favor of a sale at a meeting on Thursday.

The vote makes it official: News Corp. (NWS), Rupert Murdoch's global media empire, will own one of the greatest American newspapers, The Wall Street Journal.

"If anything, you'll find us trying to set a higher bar," said Murdoch in an address to Dow Jones employees following the vote in which he praised the publisher's traditions and pledged to continue them.

Roughly 78% of the outstanding common shares voted in favor of the deal, while only 54% of the supervoting shares, mostly controlled by the Bancroft family, approved the deal.

Murdoch's $5 billion buyout offer, which shocked Wall Street and sent Dow Jones shares soaring, met resistance from some members of the Bancroft family as well as company employees, several directors and Dow Jones' former chairman and CEO, Peter Kann.

That said, the outcome of the vote was a foregone conclusion after enough of Dow Jones' controlling shareholders had already committed to supporting the deal. The formal closing of the deal becomes effective at close of business Thursday.

News Corp. has already announced that it will install longtime News Corp. executive Leslie Hinton as CEO of Dow Jones, and former Times of London Editor Robert Thomson will be publisher of The Journal. They're expected to assume their posts Friday at Dow Jones' headquarters.

The Bancroft family's representative on News Corp.'s board of directors, chosen by News Corp. after the family missed a contractual deadline, will be Natalie Bancroft, a 27-year-old opera singer living in Europe who is a neophyte to the worlds of both journalism and business.