|
PureBytes Links
Trading Reference Links
|
Extracts from the Globe and Mail today on Dow Jones Telerate:
___________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, February 10, 1998 Copyright Globe and Mail
Dow Jones takes $922-million charge
Financial data unit's sale expected
By Brian Milner
NEW YORK -- Media giant Dow Jones & Co. Inc. has written off
close to $1-billion (U.S.)on its troubled financial information unit, likely
paving the way for a quick sale of the profit-draining business. But even
dumping Dow Jones Markets, the albatross formerly known as Telerate, is
unlikely to ease pressure on senior executives, who have come under intense
fire from dissidents from the controlling Bancroft family and disgruntled
institutional investors for producing lacklustre results in what turned out
to be a golden year for the industry.
Today, the executives will face fractious Wall Street analysts, who knew the New
York-based company was bleeding, but were surprised by the extent of the damage.
The massive writedown convinced investors that Dow Jones Markets will soon
be gone from an otherwise profitable stable of media properties that
includes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's magazine and various news services.
The magazine also says that Thomson Financial Services Inc., the financial
information arm of Toronto-based Thomson Corp., has put in a first bid
believed to be between $300-million and $350-million for Dow Jones Markets.
This is a provider of news, data, trading-room systems and other services
for the brokerage and institutional community. Thomson Financial officials
wouldn't comment yesterday.
Bridge Information Systems, a unit of New York buyout firm Welsh Carson
Anderson & Stowe, is believed to have had an offer of $500-million rejected,
one analyst said.
Cantor Fitzgerald LP , a New York bond dealer and data provider, is named in the
magazine as another suitor, with a tabled bid of $350-million to
$450-million. Neither of Dow Jones' biggest competitors, Reuters Holdings
PLC and Bloomberg LP, have joined the auction, which is expected to be
wrapped up by the end of the month.
The writedown, much of it for good will associated with Dow Jones Markets,
has reduced the book value of the unit to $550-million. That's below the
$700-million the company is believed to have been seeking from prospective
buyers and a far cry from the $1.6-billion price paid by Dow Jones to
acquire Telerate in 1990.
Dow Jones pumped close to another $200-million into the unit, but last year
abandoned a plan to invest an additional $650-million for a complete
makeover. The project was called Rolling Thunder internally. But insiders
quickly dubbed it Rolling Blunder.
Michael Paauwe
mpaauwe@xxxxxxxxxx
|