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NEW YORK (AP) - General Electric Co. said Thursday it has abandoned talks with Financial Times publisher Pearson PLC about a possible bid for Dow Jones & Co., removing a potential rival to a $5 billion offer from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
GE said it held "exploratory discussions" with London-based Pearson about combining GE's CNBC business news cable channel, Pearson's Financial Times newspaper and Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Dow Jones Newswires, but decided not to proceed.
Pearson's CEO Marjorie Scardino told FT staff in a note that given News Corp.'s interest in Dow Jones and Thomson Corp.'s pending deal to acquire Reuters Group PLC, Pearson had "kicked around some ideas" about combining CNBC, the FT and Dow Jones, but "didn't see that combination stacking up for our shareholders."
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