The fate of Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion bid for Dow Jones remains obscure as turmoil continues to rage within the Bancroft family, which controls 64% of the company's voting power, even as time is running out. Lawyers spent Friday trying to 
alter the voting structure of the family's largest trust to dilute the power of trustee Christopher Bancroft, who opposes the takeover. A family trust in Denver, however, which holds 9.1% of the vote and was considered a swing vote, is now expected to oppose the bid in the hope of extracting a higher price. Family member Crawford Hill sent a letter to the Bancrofts supportive of the sale: "Murdoch, like it or not, has what it takes to help the business flourish. ...He will not have naked bodies in the WSJ -- he is not a moron." His sister Leslie, meanwhile, wrote her own letter imploring the family not to "throw in the towel." Cousin Elisabeth Goth Chelberg, who has long held that the Bancrofts should be more involved in the company, wrote that they may now be reaping the consequences of their inactivity, and asked if the family has the "stomach for risk" a rejection of the bid would entail. "The family ownership/trust structure, the dividend policy and our lack of requiring management's accountability have put us in the position we're now in with Dow Jones," she wrote. "There is no going back, pre-News Corp.'s bid, to the way things were." Michael Elefante, a board member and chief trustee of the Bancroft family's shares, has asked the family to decide by the end of Monday whether or not they support Murdoch's bid, a source told Reuters on Sunday.
Sources: Wall Street Journal, Reuters I, II, Variety
Commentary: Bancroft Decision on Murdoch Bid Too Close to Call • Brad Greenspan Takes Case to Dow Jones Shareholders • Dow Jones Board Approves Murdoch Bid; Bancrofts to Decide
Stocks/ETFs to watch: DJ, NWS. Competitors: RTRSY. ETFs: PBS
Earnings call transcripts: Dow Jones Q2 2007, News Corporation F3Q07
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