GE, Pearson drop Dow Jones takeover pursuit

By Robert MacMillan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co. and Pearson Plc said on Thursday they would not pursue a joint offer for publisher Dow Jones & Co. Inc., removing a potential challenge to a $5 billion bid by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp..

GE -- which controls NBC Universal, the operator of business news channel CNBC -- and Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, said they had held exploratory talks about combining their financial news outlets with Dow Jones.

"Following these discussions, GE and Pearson have decided not to pursue this combination," GE said in a statement. "Pearson and NBC Universal continue to discuss cooperative agreements between CNBC and the Financial Times Group."

On Wednesday, Dow Jones said its board would take over negotiations with News Corp. on its bid. The decision could bring those talks to a quicker resolution.

Murdoch aims to compete with CNBC with a business news channel of his own, due to be launched later this year. But analysts said the potential competition alone would not motivate GE to make an offer for the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

"GE is pretty disciplined on financial returns, and I think when they started looking at what was involved, the numbers didn't work," said Benchmark Co. analyst Ed Atorino.

A spokesman for the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones through its voting shares, declined to comment, as did News Corp. and Dow Jones officials.

MURDOCH BID STANDS ALONE