Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) may wind up selling its 20% stake in Bloomberg L.P., the parent of Bloomberg News, to Mike Bloomberg.Bloomberg, whose personal fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $5 billion, can easily afford the buy back the 20% stake in his company that he does not already own. Given its financial condition, Merrill better hope that the New York mayor is willing to open his check book. Other media companies are not going to shell out big bucks for a minority stake in the company where I worked for seven years. This is especially true given that many of Bloomberg's biggest customers in Wall Street are cutting spending given the uncertainties in the world's financial markets.
Maybe the private equity players would be willing to pay up provided that they could see an exit strategy through an IPO. I don't see that happening either. Bloomberg, which the Wall Street Journal says has the right of first refusal for the sale, likes being a private company because it enables it to march to the beat of its own drummer. That was especially true when Mike Bloomberg ran the show.
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