On Friday we reported on Pearson looking at bidding for Dow Jones, and that it may tie-up with GE, which has also been looking at the possibility of a joint bid. Now FT’s Mergermarket reports that GE will decide on the joint bid with Pearson within days. Some of the options being discussed include a joint venture that could include Dow Jones’ controlling Bancroft family as minority partners. The Bancroft family could retain a 20 per cent stake in Dow Jones, with the remainder held by Pearson and GE, thus continuing the family’s involvement with a company they have controlled for more than a century.

In addition to GE, Pearson has also sounded out Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp and Hearst as it considers whether to respond to News Corp’s move on Dow Jones, though any interest form them looks unlikely

Update: WSJ weighs in with its own report on the GE-Pearson possibilities. One version has CNBC, the FT and DJ combining into a privately held JV—co-owned by GE and Pearson with Bancrofts as minority shareholder with 10-20 percent. That would allow some family members to roll their stock into the JV, holding down taxes. GE wouldn’t have to provide cash if it contributed CNBC. Pearson would contribute FT Group—which some have been urging it to sell for years—and probably some cash. The deal is being compared to the no-cash agreement GE made with Vivendi to piece together NBCU as a JV. 

WSJ: “The new venture GE and Pearson are discussing would have a strong global presence in business news and financial information. In addition to the Journal, the FT and CNBC, it would own Barron’s financial weekly, 50 percent of the Economist magazine and interests in business newspapers in Russia, France, South Africa and India, as well as the leading stock indexes in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom. It would also include Dow Jones Newswires, the Factiva electronic news database and a controlling stake in Interactive Data Corp., a compiler of financial information. CNBC’s modest Web site would be augmented by Dow Jones’s WSJ.com and MarketWatch and Pearson’s FT.com, creating a potent online business-news presence.”