 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | November 1882; 142 years ago (1882-11) |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | 1211 Avenue of the Americas,, |
Key people | Almar Latour (CEO) |
| Products | |
| Revenue |  $1.5 billionUSD (2019) |
| $386.56 millionUSD (2009) | |
| Parent | News Corp (2007–present) |
| Website | dowjones |
| Footnotes / references [1][2][3] | |
Dow Jones & Company, Inc. (also known simply asDow Jones) is an American publishing firm owned byNews Corp, and led by CEOAlmar Latour.[4] The company publishesThe Wall Street Journal,Barron's,MarketWatch,Mansion Global,Financial News andPrivate Equity News.
The company is best known for its historical publication of theDow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and related market statistics. It published the DJIA from 1882 until 2010, when News Corp then sold 90% ownership of the Dow Jonesstock market indices business toCME Group; News Corp sold CME its remaining 10% in 2013.
The company was founded in 1882 by three reporters:Charles Dow,Edward Jones, andCharles Bergstresser. Charles Dow was widely known for his ability to break down and convey what was often considered very convoluted financial information and news to the general public – this is one of the reasons why Dow Jones & Company is well known for their publications and transferring of important and sometimes difficult to understand financial information to people across the globe. Nevertheless, the three reporters were joined in control of the organization byThomas F. Woodlock.[5]
Dow Jones was acquired in 1902 byClarence Barron, the leading financial journalist of the day, after the death of co-founder Charles Dow.[6] Upon Barron's death in 1928, control of the company passed to his stepdaughter, Jane Bancroft. The company was led by theBancroft family, which effectively controlled 64% of all voting stock, until 2007 when an extended takeover battle sawNews Corporation acquire the business. The company then became a subsidiary of News Corporation.[7] It was reported on August 1, 2007, that the bid had been successful after an extended period of uncertainty about shareholder agreement, with the transaction finalized on December 13, 2007.[8][9][10] It was worth US$5 billion or $60 a share, givingNews Corp control ofThe Wall Street Journal and ending the Bancroft family's 105 years of ownership.[11]
Dow Jones was the original publisher of theDow Jones Industrial Average, in addition to a number of other financial statistics and publications. In 2010, theDow Jones Indexes subsidiary was sold to theCME Group and the company focused on financial news publications, including its flagship publicationThe Wall Street Journal and providing financial news and information tools to financial companies.[12]
In 2005, together with FTSE, Dow Jones launched theIndustry Classification Benchmark, a taxonomy used to segregate markets into sectors.
In April 2020, Dow Jones CEOWilliam Lewis announced he would be stepping down from his position after nearly six years in the role.[13]
On May 7, 2020 News Corp announced thatAlmar Latour would assume the CEO role on May 15, 2020.[14]
In 2021, Dow Jones acquiredOPIS and Base Chemicals fromIHS Markit for $1.4 billion dollars.[15][16]
Its flagship publication,The Wall Street Journal, is a dailynewspaper in print and online covering business, financial national and international news and issues around the globe. It began publishing on July 8, 1889. There are 12 versions of the Journal in nine languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Malay, Turkish and Korean. The Journal has won 35Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism.[17]
Other consumer-oriented publications of Dow Jones includeBarron's Magazine, a weekly overview of the world economy and markets,MarketWatch, an online financial news site, andInvestor's Business Daily, a newspaper and website covering the stock market, international business, finance and economics.Financial News[18] provides news oninvestment banking,securities, andasset management. BigCharts,[19] provided by MarketWatch's Virtual Stock Exchange Games,[20] includes stock charts, screeners, interactive charting, and research tools.Professor Journal[21] is a "Journal" in education program for professors to integrate into curriculum.
In 2017, Dow Jones launched Moneyish, a lifestyle andpersonal finance website aimed atmillennial readers.[22]
Dow Jones also publishedHeat Street, an online news and opinion website launched in February 2016 that was later folded into MarketWatch.[23]
The monthly journalFar Eastern Economic Review closed in September 2009.
Dow Jones serves corporate markets and financial markets clients with financial news and information products and services. Dow Jones owns more than 20 products that combine content and technology to help drive decisions, which include:
Dow Jones Newswires is the real-time financial news organization founded in 1882, its primary competitors areBloomberg L.P. andThomson Reuters. The company reports more than 600,000 subscribers – includingbrokers,traders,analysts, world leaders, and finance officials andfund managers – as of July 2011.
In 2009 Dow Jones Ventures launched FINS.com, a standalone resource for financial professionals with information about finance careers and the finance industry. In 2012, the site was acquired byDice.com.
In broadcasting, Dow Jones provides news content toCNBC in the U.S. It produced two shows for commercialradio,The Wall Street Journal Report on theWall Street Journal Radio Network andThe Dow Jones Report. The network was shut down in 2014.
Dow Jones also launched WSJ Live[29] an interactive video website that provides live and on demand videos from The Wall Street Journal Video Network. Programs included "News Hub", "MoneyBeat", and "Lunch Break" among others. WSJ Live was shut down in 2017.
In February 2010, Dow Jones sold a 90% stake in its Index business for $607.5 million toChicago-basedCME Group, which owns theChicago Mercantile Exchange.[30] A few of the most widely used included:
In July 2012, Dow Jones & Company and CME Group contributed the Dow Jones Indices to the formation of theS&P Dow Jones Indices joint venture, withMcGraw–Hill's Standard and Poor's (S&P) subsidiary holding 73.0%, the CME Group holding 24.4%, and Dow Jones & Company holding an indirect 2.6% ownership interest in the joint venture.[31]
In April 2013, CME Group purchased the Dow Jones & Company interest in the S&P Dow Jones Indices joint venture for $80.0 million, increasing CME Group's interest to 27.0% and removing Dow Jones & Company from all involvement with its namesake indices.[32]
In March 2017, Dow Jones and NewsPicks Inc., a Japanese firm that develops and operates a business news platform of the same name, established a joint venture called NewsPicks USA, LLC.[33] The joint venture is headed by CEO Ken Breen, who is currently the Senior Vice President, Commercial, for the Dow Jones Media Group, together with Chairman Yusuke Umeda, who is also the Director of NewsPicks Inc.[34][33][35]
The joint venture launched the English version of the NewsPicks platform for the US market on November 13, 2017. Similar to the original Japanese edition, the US edition of NewsPicks combines business news from sources likeThe Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Reuters with social networking features, such as comments on news articles from top-ranked business professionals from around the world ("ProPickers").[36] The platform currently has a smartphone app for the iPhone with plans for release on Android in the future.[37]
The venture was dissolved in October 2018 with the Japanese parent company retaining full ownership.[38]
The company's foundation was laid by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser who, over two decades, conceived and promoted the three products which define Dow Jones and financial journalism:The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.[6]
Dow Jones was acquired in 1902 by the leading financial journalist of the day, Clarence Barron.[6]
In 2007, Dow Jones was acquired by News Corp., a leading global media company.[6]
The Bancroft family and heirs ofClarence W. Barron effectively controlled the company's class B shares, each with a voting power of ten regular shares, prior to its sale to News Corp. At one time, they controlled 64% of Dow Jones voting stock.[39]
Currently, Dow Jones is owned by Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and several other major media companies.
On May 1, 2007, Dow Jones released a statement confirming thatNews Corporation, led byRupert Murdoch, had made an unsolicited offer of $60 per share, or $5 billion, for Dow Jones.[40] Stock was briefly halted for a pending press release. The halt lasted under 10 minutes while CNBC was receiving data. It was suggested that the buyout offer was related to Murdoch's new cable business news channelFox Business, which launched in 2007, and that the Dow Jones brand would bring instant credibility to the project.[41]
On June 6, 2007,Brian Tierney, CEO and founder ofPhiladelphia Media Holdings, which then ownedThe Philadelphia Inquirer,Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, went public in an article on Philly.com expressing interest in "joining with outside partners to buy Dow Jones." Tierney said, "We would participate as Philadelphia Media Holdings, along with other investors. We wouldn't do it alone."[42]
In June,MySpace co-founderBrad Greenspan put forth a bid to buy 25% of Dow Jones for $60 a share, the same price per share as News Corporation's bid, giving the existing shareholders a $1.25 billion cash infusion while maintaining overall ownership of the company.[43]
On July 17, 2007,The Wall Street Journal, a unit of Dow Jones, reported that the company and News Corporation had agreed in principle on a US$5 billion takeover, that the offer would be put to the full Dow Jones board on the same evening in New York, and that the offer valued the company at 70% more than the company's market value.[44]
Our strategy centers around leaving the print publications of Dow Jones intact to continue serving as the gold standard of financial reporting, and creating additional earnings streams throughdigital media initiatives that can produce a stock price above 100 dollars a share,
For too long, Dow Jones has limited its focus to the world of print media and allowed other, less established entities to generate millions of dollars in profits by developing financial reporting franchises on the Internet and cable television.
The time has come for Dow Jones to break out of its slumber and extend its dominance into the lucrative arena of digital media.
— Channel News Asia Business Section[45]
Upon investigating suspicious share price movements in the run-up to the announcement, theUnited States Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that board memberSir David Li, one ofHong Kong's most prominent businessmen, had informed his close friend and business associate Michael Leung of the impending offer. Leung acted on this information by telling his daughter and son-in-law, who reaped a US$8.2 million profit from aninsider trading transaction.[46]
Prior to its sale to News Corp, the last members of theboard of directors of the company were Christopher Bancroft,Lewis B. Campbell, Michael Elefante,John Engler,Harvey Golub, Leslie Hill, Irvine Hockaday,Peter Kann, David Li,M. Peter McPherson (chairman), Frank Newman, James Ottaway, Elizabeth Steele, andWilliam Steere.[citation needed]
In April 2013, we purchased the[remaining] non-controlling interest ... from Dow Jones & Company ... increase in our ownership to 27% of the S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC ...
