News Corp. nearing sale of MySpace

Rupert Murdoch's long nightmare could be over in a couple of days - All Things Digital's Kara Swisher reports that two firms, one of them based in OC, appear to be finalists for News Corp.'s beleaguered social networking site. Purchase price, she says, is in the $20 million to $30 million range, which is only about $550 million less than what Murdoch had purchased the business for in 2005 (boy, that seems like a long time ago).

The two names -- Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital -- that are now in the forefront for an acquisition deal that News Corp. hopes to complete by Thursday, its fiscal year end, have not been among the acquirers mentioned previously in the myriad of reports about the deal. [Irvine-based] Specific Media -- a large, if lesser known, advertising network -- seems to be in the lead, said sources. It has been around for a half-decade and has been funded by Francisco Partners. [SF-based] Golden Gate Capital is a private equity firm with $9 billion under management, which has mostly specialized in turning around companies. It has never invested in a consumer Internet company.

Both companies would focus Myspace on music. An investment group that included Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had been considered a strong contender, but they couldn't work out a bunch of stuff related to a purchase.