Reuters Suitors: Dow Jones, Thomson, News Corp?
Rumors that Reuters (RTRSY) has been approached about selling the company now revolve around Canandian information services giant Thomson (TOC). The company has a market cap of almost $30 billion, and it is unlikely that Reuters would go for less…
Rumors that Reuters (RTRSY) has been approached about selling the company now revolve around Canandian information services giant Thomson (TOC). The company has a market cap of almost $30 billion, and it is unlikely that Reuters would go for less than $15 billion. But, part of the core of Thomson’s operations is financial services information.
The other rumored candidate is News Corp.(NWS) With a "we will take no action" reaction from the families that control Dow Jones (DJ), Murdoch may have decided to go after a larger company and compete with Dow Jones rather than buy it Reuters could be good partner in the start-up of the News Corp TV business channel. News Corp’s market cap is close to $70 billion. But, Reuters can block any buyer who takes a position in the company over 30% in the name of keeping its news organization independent. A trust controls a portion of Reuters’ shares.
Of course, the other potential buyer might be Dow Jones. It is only worth a little under $5 billion in the open market, but in this period of private equity, the idea that a firm like Blackstone or KKR could put together a deal is certainly within the realm of possibility. It would keep both firms out of the hands of Murdoch.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.