Media
媒体 Rupert gets his trophy
鲁珀特得到了他的战利品
Aug 1st 2007 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com
Rupert Murdoch has won Dow Jones, demonstrating his dealmaking prowess
赢了道琼斯，鲁珀特.默多克展现了其高超的并购技巧
NEWS reports suggested that the result was in doubt right up to the end, but Rupert Murdoch’s admirers were certain that he would prevail. “Rupert doesn’t ask questions to which he doesn’t already know the answer,” says one fellow media mogul. So when Mr Murdoch’s News Corporation offered in April to buy Dow Jones, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, he was already pretty sure that the reply, which eventually came in the early hours of Wednesday August 1st, would be yes—and it was.
新闻报道都暗示现在盖棺定论还为时尚早，但是鲁珀特.默多克的粉丝们都确信他会获胜。“鲁珀特不会打无把握之战，”一位同行的媒体大亨如是说。因此四月份当默多克先生的新闻集团提出购买道琼斯时——华尔街日报的东家——他就已经非常确信会有一个肯定的答复，这个答复最终在8月1日星期三一早敲定——答案确实是可以。
Murdoch has played a difficult hand brilliantly. He read the internal politics of the sprawling Bancroft clan, which owns a controlling stake in Dow Jones, perfectly—perhaps better than he reads his own family. His $5 billion offer was just high enough to swing the intergenerational politics of the Bancrofts his way, by enticing enough of the younger members of the clan to put money before the continuation of the family’s long stewardship of the company. And when some members of the family tried to get Mr Murdoch to raise his offer, his refusal to do so and his threat to walk away were convincing enough to get them to agree to his original offer.
默多克先生很漂亮地打胜了一场硬仗。他瞅准了控股道琼斯的Bancroft家族本身的要害，不折不扣——简直比他了解自己的家底还要更甚。他50亿美元的收购价恰如其分地击中了Bancroft家族两代人之间的要害，足够诱惑他们家族较为年轻的成员与其长年固守该公司还不如收下这笔钱。当这个家族的有些成员试图让默多克先生提高对价的时候，他拒绝这样做并威胁要放弃真的的是让他们完全信服并同意他的最初递价。
He also agreed to various measures to safeguard the Wall Street Journal’s editorial independence that were just sufficient to salve enough Bancroft consciences, without (judging by similar arrangements at the Times of London) meaningfully inhibiting his ability to do as he pleases.
他还同意通过各种手段保证《华尔街时报》编辑的独立性，这也就足以让Bancroft家族的良心上能过得去，不会有意去阻止他的为所欲为。
The timing of the offer was equally astute, coming after the family had realised that the company faced huge strategic problems, but before the new chief executive they appointed last year had had time to show he could solve them, and so enable Dow Jones to prosper as an independent business. Arguably, Mr Murdoch’s eventual triumph was guaranteed from the moment Dow Jones’s board admitted that a merger might be the best strategy for the firm, and started to negotiate.
这个出价的时间安排也同样精巧，在该家族认识到该公司有巨大的战略危机之后，但正好在去年新的首席执行官任命并证明他可以解决这些问题之前，这样的话就让道琼斯作为一个独立的企业继续繁荣了。可以证明的是，道琼斯董事会承认企业并购会是该企业的最好的战略，这奠定了默多克成功的基石，然后谈判才开始的。
Apart from the slim chance that the Bancrofts would put tradition and principle before money, the biggest risk to Mr Murdoch was that another buyer, more acceptable to the family, would appear. But his generous offer was high enough to scare off potential private-equity bidders. Although Dow Jones did hold talks with two possible bidders—Ron Burkle, a supermarket billionaire, and Brad Greenspan, an internet entrepreneur—it only seemed to be going through the motions.
除了Bancroft家族有些许可能会更看中传统和原则而不是钱财，默多克先生所面临的最大风险就是会有其他更被该家族看好的买家出现。但是他慷慨的出价高的足以吓退那些潜在的私募股权投资家们。尽管道琼斯也有和两个可能的买家——超市业大亨罗恩•伯克尔，以及互联网企业家布拉德•格林斯潘(Brad Greenspan)有过对话——它好像仅仅是走走过场罢了。
Mr Murdoch’s only real worry was that there might be a serious counterbid from the two firms with most to lose from his acquisition of Dow Jones: Pearson, which owns the Financial Times (and is part owner of The Economist), and General Electric (GE), which owns CNBC, a business-news channel. With Mr Murdoch’s backing the Wall Street Journal will surely prove a much tougher rival to the Financial Times, and Dow Jones’s resources might enable News Corporation’s new business-TV channel, due to launch in October, to do serious damage to CNBC. Yet despite rumours of a joint bid from Pearson and GE, no such bid materialised.
默多克先生唯一担心的是因他的收购而可能失去很多的两个公司的激烈反对：拥有《金融时报》（并且是经济学家的股东）的Pearson以及拥有商业新闻频道CNBC的通用电器（GE）。有默多克先生做靠山《华尔街时报》对《金融时报》来说当然是一个更为强悍的对手，并且道琼斯带来的资源也许会让新闻集团的10月份上市的新的商业电视频道在极大地挫伤CNBC。然而谣传Pearson和通用电气会联袂出价，但是最终并没有落实。
Mr Murdoch has, however, paid a high price for Dow Jones—at least $1 billion, and perhaps $2 billion more than appears justified by the fundamentals of the business—so News Corporation’s shareholders may come to regard his victory as pyrrhic. Mr Murdoch’s tougher management will no doubt squeeze out some cost savings. But his plans to generate strong growth, by expanding the Wall Street Journal and linking it with his other online and broadcast properties, do not seem terribly convincing. Which is why some News Corporation shareholders suspect that they are just excuses, and that Mr Murdoch has put his longtime desire to own the one of the world’s great newspapers before any serious consideration of value for money.
可是默多克先生已经为道琼斯出了高价——至少比合理的商业估价要高10亿甚或是20亿——所以新闻集团的股东们可能得出结论说他的胜利是付出极大牺牲而得到的胜利(注：Pyrrhus在280-279B.C. 打败了罗马军队, 但牺牲极大)。默多克的强硬的管理层绝对需要成本节约计划。但是他的计划是通过《华尔街时报》的扩张和与他其他在线或者广播实体关联来促发强劲增长，这个好像不是十分令人信服。这就是为什么新闻集团的股东们会怀疑这些是借口，并且也对默多克先生长期以来一直就渴望拥有一家世界上大的报业而不是很严肃地考虑出价是否值得。