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Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, is seeking partners to make a possible bid for Wall Street Journal owner Dow Jones & Co, the Journal reported on its website.
Pearson had talked about potential partners, including US newspaper publisher Hearst and General Electric, which owns business news channel CNBC, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Dow's controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, are considering a US$5 billion ($6.64 billion) bid from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
A number of London analysts have said Murdoch's bid, if successful, could make Dow Jones a more aggressive competitor against Pearson. The Financial Times competes with the Wall Street Journal, although the paper, which has a stronghold in Europe, has far fewer US readers than the New York-based Journal.
New York analyst Ed Atorino, of Benchmark Co, said Pearson would not be able to pull off a bid without partners.
"I don't believe financially it would be possible," he said. "They don't have the scale or the balance sheet."
Steven Yount, president of the Dow Jones employees union, which is seeking other bidders to challenge Murdoch, said he was unaware of any interest from Pearson. "I have not reached out to Pearson and they have not talked to me," he said.
The union has approached Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Warren Buffett about making a bid. Berkshire owns about 20 per cent of the outstanding shares of the Washington Post Co. Billionaire investor Ron Burkle is advising the union on bids.
Another potential bidder is Brian Tierney, who led an investor group to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. Tierney has said he would be interested in working with partners on a bid.
The Bancroft family met Murdoch this month, but some members have opposed his bid because they fear he would not preserve the editorial independence of Dow Jones' news operations.
That might make an offer from Pearson more attractive to the Bancrofts, Atorino said.
"I guess anybody would be more attractive than Murdoch, from what they've said publicly and all these rules they want to put in."
Pearson is the world's largest educational publisher. Headed by Texas-born chief executive Marjorie Scardino, it publishes school textbooks, the Financial Times and Les Echos newspapers, and assorted books at its Penguin unit.
- REUTERS
