MarketWatch.com may put itself on the block

MarketWatch.com Inc., a financial news provider, is looking to sell itself in an auction that could see the company fetch as much as $400 million, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing executives involved in the sale.

The Times said San Francisco-based MarketWatch.com quietly put itself on the block last month, and has hired banking firm UBS to conduct the auction. Final bids are due next week, the report said.

Some large media companies are among the suitors, including the CBS Television unit of Viacom Inc.; Dow Jones & Co., which owns The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times Co.; and possibly the Financial Times Group of Pearson, unnamed executives told the Times. Yahoo Inc. is also considered in the running, the report said.

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The newspaper’s sources said Dow is considered the front-runner, because of the savings it could obtain by combining some MarketWatch operations with others in its company.

Dow is interested because acquiring MarketWatch would provide access to a wider Internet audience and a bigger slice of the online advertising market, the Times said. It would also allow Dow to convert some MarketWatch subscribers to paid subscribers of The Journal’s site, it added.

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In addition, a purchase of MarketWatch could facilitate a cutback of Dow’s editorial and back-office functions that would duplicate those of MarketWatch, the Times reported.

Viacom owns nearly 25 percent of MarketWatch and was one of its original backers. Viacom, the report said, is interested in buying MarketWatch to protect the brand value it helped create and to help expand its own news site.

A spokesperson for MarketWatch.com did not immediately return a call seeking comment.