DAVOS-KLOSTERS/SWITZERLAND, 30JAN09 - Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation, USA; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009 captured during the session 'Advice to the US President on Competitiveness' at the Annual Meeting 2009 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 30, 2009. Copyright by World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Monika Flueckiger
More than a decade ago, the billionaire and media mogul Rupert Murdoch was forced to split its empire after the infamous phone-hacking scandal that shook the British media and political scene.
Ever since that scandal, Murdoch’s long-term aim was to reunify its media conglomerate to be able to more efficiently compete in the aggressively competitive digital media market.
Today, the 91-year old Murdoch decided to listen to advice from his son, Lachlan, who is also the head of Fox Corporation, a publicly traded American behemoth that runs the eponymous television and entertainment group. Heeding advice from Lachlan, the elder Murdoch called off plans to merge Fox with News Corp, a publishing giant that runs The Wall Street Journal in America, and The Sun and The Times in the U.K., and The Australian, among other titles. The merger would not be “optimal” for shareholders, The Guardian, a British newspaper reported.
News Corp posted profits of US$ 1.6bn last year. Fox Corp, on the other hand, netted US$ 3bn in 2022.
The Murdoch family owns roughly 40% of the shares in both companies. A merger of the two firms would need the approval of a majority of investors. Special committees of the Fox and News Corp boards were set up to analyze the proposed merger. As the proposal is no longer on the table, those committees have now been dissolved.
Photo: Monika Flueckiger, World Economic Forum, CC use Wikimedia Commons
