Murdoch appears to have votes to secure Dow deal

NEW YORK -- Rupert Murdoch appeared to be on the verge of clinching a deal to buy Dow Jones & Co., reportedly lining up sufficient support Tuesday to take over stewardship of The Wall Street Journal publisher from the family that has controlled it for more than a century.

The Journal reported on its Web site Tuesday that a key Bancroft family trust had reversed itself and decided to support the deal, likely meaning that votes representing about 38 percent of Dow Jones' shareholder vote were now in favor of selling to Murdoch.

Combined with the 29 percent of Dow Jones shares that are publicly held and very likely to support Murdoch, the $5 billion deal appeared to have critical mass.

However, a Bancroft family spokesman cautioned that family members were still being polled about their positions and that it was too early to conclude that a particular level of support had been reached. The family controls a total of 64 percent of Dow Jones' vote through a complicated series of trusts.

The next step is for Murdoch's News Corp. to decide whether it has enough support from the Bancroft family to proceed. The media conglomerate wants to have well over a simple majority committed to the deal in order to avoid the risk of it falling apart later.

News Corp. hasn't said what it would consider to be a sufficient level of support for the deal, but a company spokesman said Monday that it was "highly unlikely" to proceed with the deal if support from the family remained at the level reported at that time -- about 29 percent.

Members of the Bancroft family had a 5 p.m. deadline Monday to tell the family's lead trustee how they would vote, but negotiations apparently continued over other matters in an attempt to convince holdout votes to sign on.

The Journal reported Tuesday that Dow Jones' board had agreed to set aside funds to pay the Bancroft family's advisory fees, which could total at least $30 million.

Representatives of News Corp. and Dow Jones on Tuesday declined to comment on the continuing negotiations.