EchoStar, MySpace Cofounder Eye Dow Jones
DBS Provider Teams Up with Greenspan on Bid for Financial-News Co.
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 7/9/2007 5:34:00 AM
EchoStar Communications is part of an investor group, led by MySpace cofounder Brad Greenspan, which is looking to buy part of Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Greenspan brought together of group of investors that are looking to purchase part of Dow Jones at $60 per share and to invest another $250 million, offering an alternative to Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion offer for the financial-news company.
Greenspan’s group “would include the participation” of EchoStar, according to The Journal. EchoStar declined to comment to the paper.
Looking to invest in Dow Jones would be the latest in a series of unusual investment moves on the part of EchoStar, the nation’s second-largest direct-broadcast satellite provider. Earlier this year, Charlie Ergen’s company reportedly made a failed $2.13 billion bid for ION Media Networks, which owns 60 TV stations and runs a broadcast network. ION ultimately accepted a tender offer from NBC Universal and Citadel Investment Group.
And just last month, EchoStar teamed up with its satellite rival, DirecTV, to make a bid for Intelsat, the world’s biggest provider of fixed-satellite services. But BC Partners won in that auction, acquiring a majority stake in Intelsat for $5 billion.
In May, EchoStar president Carl Vogel was asked about the ION bid. He declined to comment but said EchoStar continues “to look for things that we think are complementary.”
Greenspan is slated to meet with the Bancroft family, Dow Jones’ controlling shareholder, Tuesday, The Journal said. He is proposing to buy one-half of the company, in part via a stock buyback.
Leslie Hill, a Dow Jones director who wants alternatives to Rupert Murdoch’s bid for the financial-news giant, pushed the company to meet with other potential bidders, such as Greenspan and supermarket entrepreneur Ron Burkle.
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