Dow Jones unit sale process only in early stages: source

A board at the New York Stock Exchange displays the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the opening bell July 24, 2009.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp's (NWSA.O) Dow Jones & Co Inc is only in the early stages of exploring a sale of its stock market index business and a sales prospectus has not gone out yet, a source familiar with the matter said.

Goldman Sachs has been hired as a financial advisor to explore the options for the business, which includes the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI, according the source, who declined to identified because the process is private.

A Dow Jones spokesman could not be reached immediately for comment.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought Dow Jones in 2007 for $5.7 billion, but since then he has come under criticism for paying such a hefty price for a publishing company whose businesses have suffered from the sharp drop in ad sales. Earlier this year, News Corp wrote down $2.8 billion in Dow Jones' value.

The move to explore options for the business is not surprising. Industry analysts never felt it was much favored by Murdoch, a passionate backer of newspapers and one of the best-known media moguls.

Indeed, a number of analysts expected him to consider a sale of the index business soon after striking the deal for Dow Jones.

Potential buyers for the business could include McGraw-Hill Cos (MHP.N) Standard & Poor's, Russell Indexes, MSCI Inc MXB.N, Bloomberg, Pearson Plc's (PSON.L) Financial Times and Thomson Reuters Corp TRIN.O (TRI.TO) Tril.L. (TRI.N). On Friday, all of those companies declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, said the process could result in an arrangement other than a sale, like a joint venture.

(Reporting by Jui Chakravorty; Additional reporting by Megan Davies; Writing by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Diane Craft)