NEW YORK — Wall Street became increasingly skittish about Rupert Murdoch’s prospects for clinching a deal to buy Dow Jones & Co., sending the stock of the Wall Street Journal publisher down more than 5 percent yesterday as a deadline arrived for the Journal’s controlling shareholders to make a decision.
Members of the Bancroft family, which has controlled Dow Jones for a century, had a 5 p.m. deadline yesterday to tell the family’s lead trustee how they would vote on Mr. Murdoch’s $5 billion offer to buy the company.
A Bancroft family spokesman declined to comment on the vote’s outcome late yesterday.
The next expected step is for News Corp., Mr. Murdoch’s media conglomerate, to be informed of how many Bancroft family members were in favor of the offer and decide whether it has enough support to proceed.
Yesterday a News Corp. spokesman said the company was “highly unlikely” to go ahead with the deal if the level of support among the Bancrofts remained at just 28 percent of the shareholder vote, which the Wall Street Journal reported was the level of commitment as of Sunday.
The News Corp. spokesman asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.