Is Brad Greenspan the Bancrofts' White Knight?

Brad Greenspan is nuts, and we admire him for it. Last year he filed a lawsuit against News Corp. (NWS) and Intermix for essentially letting News Corp. "steal" away MySpace. He claimed MySpace was worth $10-20 billion, while Intermix sold it for $580M.

Mind you, yesterday News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said - via his London Times - that MySpace (and perhaps all of FIM) could be Yahoo!’s in exchange for a 25% stake in Yahoo! Maybe Brad was right, who knows?

Yesterday entered a white knight, perhaps. Brad Greenspan, who seems to hold a grudge against Mr. Murdoch sent the Bancrofts a letter telling them that he would be bidding $60/share in a Dutch auction for 25% of Dow Jones’ (DJ) share, or $1.25 billion worth of DJ’s shares.

Not surprisingly, the WSJ runs the story, as does Barron’s. But if GE (GE) and Pearson (PSO) were willing to buy 80% and leave 20% for the Bancrofts… why not have GE, Pearson each take 27.5% (that’s 55% if you’re counting), then Greenspan’s group can take 25% and the Bancrofts will have 20%.

GE and Pearson have strategic interests: the former has CNBC to protect, the latter has both The Economist and Financial Times. Neither are online whizzes, yet Greenspan is.

That’s ABR (anyone but Rupert) = 100% and Rupert Murdoch = 0%.