On the stage of comic Dow Jones bidding foils, enter Brad Greenspan (pictured, really leveling with us), otherwise known as the guy who owned the nest that MySpace hatched in. That is until Rupert Murdoch stole the hatchling for 0.1x, which is something 'Beenspan' is more than a little bitter about.
Beenspan outlined his vendetta bid in a letter to the Dow Jones board. He wants to buy 25% of DJ’s stock at $60 a share (about $1.25bn), opposed to the people who want to buy 100% of DJ’s stock for $60 a share or more. This, apparently, gives the deal the flexibility to provide willing sellers with liquidity, while ignoring the people who don’t want to sell in the first place. It also gives Beenspan the ability to avoid explaining why there isn't enough cash in his wallet, which can be an embarrassing first date.
What Beenspan brings to the table are these new-fangled things called social networks. Scratch that, they aren’t social networks, they’re business networks. It’s not Web 3.0, it’s Web 3.05, beta – the WSJ as a business network with user-generated content, enhanced interactivity, and other buzzwords. Beenspan also wants to tart up the WSJ with the revolution that is video content, lots and lots of video content.
This original brilliance provides the following relative advantages, according to Beenspan's letter:
1) KEEPS THE DJ/WSJ INDEPENDENT FOR THE BENEFIT OF LARGE CONSUMER BASE. (or at least free of a “fair and balanced” take on finance)2) PROVIDES PREMIUM LIQUIDITY EVENT. (at a convenient discount to other premiums)
3) ALLOWS DJ TO GO ON OFFENSE. (essential when WSJ plays the Colts)
4) UNLOCKS HIDDEN VALUE. (like when you duck behind the last gray block in stage 1-3)
5) PROVIDES UPSIDE FOR EVERYONE! (“Myspace Tom” will be your friend and business partner, and so will Amber, who insists that she’s online in a video chat room right now and that you don’t need a credit card to talk to her)
Sheer Bradness [ValleyWag]
Posted by Daniel, Jun 21, 2007 11:49AM
Someone offering to buy a lot of Dow Jones but not the whole thing. That's cool. Gives me an idea even...
They should open up the bidding for many people. Everyone can own a little bit of Dow Jones! It could be set up like a public auction, except over the internet...
And it would be great. People who owned shares in this company, let's call them shareholders for short, would obviously set a price higher than Murdoch's for such a glorious asset as the WSJ.
If they didn't, well no need really to think of that. But if they didn't, I'm sure someone in this age of cheap money would come along and buy them.
Given the board's fiduciary responsibility to shareholders such a high bid could not be denied.
And surely the employees would be happy to quit working under the trigger of the moneyed elite. As members of a larger public corporation the WSJ could become more a public newspaper for the public.
Everyone would be happy. Well, maybe not some winners of the birth lottery (not all birth lottery winners have to win first place--my parents only wanted one kid). Who cares about such people though?