Hedge Funds Wonder, How Now Dow Jones?

Hedge funds with a nose for news, as it were, have been piling into Dow Jones & Co. lately for a few reasons.

Hedge funds with a nose for news, as it were, have been piling into Dow Jones & Co. lately for a few reasons. MarketWatch reports that the likes of Tudor Investment, Citadel Investment Group and Mason Capital Management together currently hold at least 13% of outstanding shares of the publisher, and growing, because they believe CEO Rich Zannino, who hopped aboard earlier this year, will improve the company by focusing more on electronic media and less on print. Or maybe it’s the long-legged rumor that the majority stockholder Bancroft family may finally put it up to for sale. “People think the younger generation [of the Bancroft family] is going to throw in the towel,” an unnamed analyst for a media-related hedge fund told MarketWatch. “I don’t think [hedge funds are buying] because ad lineage is tracking well at The [Wall Street] Journal.” Indeed, ad revenue – as well as circulation -- at daily newspapers in general have been in a downward spiral for some time. Hedge funds are also getting in on the short side, says James Marsh of New York’s Hanover Square Capital Management, because “it looks expensive relative to its peer group,” meaning The New York Times and Tribune Co. Whatever the real reason(s), some hedge funds appear to want to just get in on a good deal. “We’ve been an owner for a period of time,” one HF Dow Jones stockholder told MarketWatch, “and we just believe it’s a cheap, undervalued stock, whether the Bancrofts sell or don’t sell...I think that people buy into the recovery story...they look at this company and they think there’s going to be a real acceleration of growth.” It’s too soon after the end of the third quarter to known if these above-mentioned hedge funds or others have once again increased their stakes in the media company.