Dow Jones

After years of pining, Rupert Murdoch may finally add Dow Jones, owner of The Wall Street Journal, to his empire. The publisher's shares rocketed 53 per cent last week to $55.80 after it was leaked that Mr Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, had sent a letter to the Dow Jones board offering to pay $60 per share, or $5bn ([pound]2.5bn).

The Bancroft family, the controlling shareholders in the company, responded coolly, saying they would take no action on the approach. But the move has put the publisher of America's second-best-selling newspaper, after USA Today, in play.

For the past two and a half years, Dow Jones shares have trundled along under $45. Mr Murdoch has long wanted the company, apparently convinced that he could do much more to leverage the name and business of The WSJ. Yet he had held off, due in part to the reluctance of the Bancrofts - who own 25 per cent of the company's stock but control it through voting shares - to sell to him.

With the impending launch of a new business channel under his Fox News network in America, now may be the time for Mr Murdoch to bring the company into the fold. It could provide an immediate font of information and statistics for the TV venture through its Dow Jones newswires and Factiva database.

The dalliance comes amid other ructions in the sector. Three days after the Dow Jones story broke, Reuters, the financial data giant, saw its shares jump a quarter when it admitted it had received an approach from anonymous suitor, believed to be Thomson.

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