WHY DOW JONES IS SELLING SIX OF ITS COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS?

Dow Jones & Company announced a definitive agreement to sell six of its community newspapers to Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. for $282.5 million in cash (after-tax proceeds to be approximately $268.0 million) which will be used to fund the recently announced Factiva acquisition and to pay down debt.

"This sale and the pending acquisition of Factiva are the latest examples of our commitment to transform Dow Jones from a company heavily dependent on print publishing revenue to a more diversified company capable of meeting the needs of its customers across all consumer and enterprise media channels, whether print, online, mobile or otherwise,'' said Rich Zannino, CEO of Dow Jones.

"By selling these papers for more than 11 times EBITDA and buying the remaining 50% of Factiva for an effective price after tax benefits and cost synergies of about 4 times EBITDA, we are efficiently redeploying capital from print to faster growing digital publishing.'' Mr. Zannino concluded.

Well, like The New York Times Company, the publishers of The Wall Street Journal need to concentrate in their main products.

These newspapers were the legacy of buying the Ottaway Group many year ago and since then Dow Jones made good money as anybody does in the US with these community publications, but at the end of the day they were a distraction.

The Wall Street Journal is another great newspapers with a poor financial performance, and I will not be surprise if very soon a free financial newspaper like CITY AM comes to Wall Street and grabs some of its readers and advertisers.