RSS feednews corp
’News Corp to the core
AGM vote tallies like this one released by News Corp late Monday don’t come up too often:
James Murdoch, the deputy chief operating officer, was particularly hammered for his perceived role in the phone hacking scandal,
What is going on inside News Corp’s board?
Events are moving ever more rapidly in News Corp-land, even before Rupert Murdoch’s appearance before British MPs later (starting 1430 UK time).
Compare (via Bloomberg):
News Corp. is considering elevating Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey to chief executive officer to succeed Rupert Murdoch,
The good, the bad, and the ugly, News Corp edition
You’ve heard of good banks, bad banks, and toxic assets.
What about a good, bad and a toxic News Corporation?
Nomura has a note on Monday that splits News Corp into three companies with distinct revenue and earnings profiles.
Snap News
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- BHP Billiton to buy Petrohawk Energy Corporation for $12.1bn — statement.
- Credit Suisse drawn into US tax probe — report.
- Rupert Murdoch says News Corp has only made some minor mistakes — report.
FBI opens preliminary inquiry into News Corp 9/11 allegations [updated]
From the New York Times on Thursday afternoon:
In response to requests from members of Congress and at least one news media report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York on Thursday opened a preliminary inquiry into allegations that News Corporation journalists sought to gain access to the phone records of victims of the Sept.
The news gets worse for News
While you were away from your desk…
Now, the statement was released after market close in the US, so we must look to Australia for the price action in News Corp.
Not good.
Politico says that Senator Rockefeller’s statement came after an ethics watchdog,
Suing the Murdoch ‘family candy jar’
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste — even in litigation.
Amalgamated Bank of New York and Central Laborers Pension Fund in March filed a writ against News Corp, alleging that its purchase of Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine company was “nepotistic”.
Time to increase the buyback Mr Murdoch?
You won’t be needing the News Corp cash pile for BSkyB.
RTRS-UK GOVT WILL SUPPORT OPPOSITION MOTION ASKING NEWS CORP <NWSA.O> TO WITHDRAW BSKYB BID-PM SPOKESMAN
Not bad for an octogenarian
Rupert Murdoch has taken action to prop up the News Corp share price.
A $5bn buyback.
Wow.
Before News Corp announced its plans to buy the 60 per cent of BSkyB it did not own, the company was under pressure to return more cash to shareholders,
The BSkyB can kicked into the long grass
This must be the fastest moving corporate story of recent times.
Just hours after Jeremy Hunt, UK culture secretary, fired off a letter to media regulator Ofcom asking them to help kick the buyout into the long grass,
Dear Ofcom…
… please help rid me of this wretched BSkyB buyout.
Can-kicking in the UK – BSkyB edition [updated]
And you thought kicking the can down the road was something they only did in continental Europe.
Wrong.
The UK government is also prepared to use to its size nine to boot – although in this country the can is kicked into the long grass not down the road.
Sky falls in — takes News Corp with it [updated]
Shares in BSkyB down around 4 per cent-plus at pixel time. Is there an arbitrage trader left in this thing?
Seems not.
Never mind News Corp’s bid for BSkyB getting kicked well into autumn by now.
Sky falls in
There goes BSkyb straight through 800 pence to as low as 775p:
That’s on this DCMS bombshell:
If it’s about media plurality, surely the closure of the News of the World isn’t definitely a bad thing here?
(Just a thought).
It’s the end of the World as we know it
But seriously, shares in Trinity Mirror up more than 10 per cent on the death of the Sunday Mirror’s biggest rival?
Daily Mail and General Trust shares were up 2.37 per cent, while Johnston Press was up 4.76 per cent.
The Sun also rises
News Corp stock up 1.6 per cent at pixel time, after shutting down the corporation’s most profitable newspaper under a dark cloud of scandal:
(Does killing the News of the World really inoculate
Dark clouds gather over BSkyB buyout
Next stop 800 pence?
As we said on Wednesday, the likelihood of the BSkyB buyout being blocked is very slim.
In theory Ofcom, which has a responsibility to ensure that holders of broadcasting licenses are “fit and proper”,
NOTW Bene? [updated]
For the first time in the News of the World phone hacking scandal the share price of the mother ship is under pressure.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic…
With the exception of Pestowire,
Myspace sold
March 2006, Fortune:
“It looks like the best acquisition we’ve made in a long, long time,” Peter Chernin, the second-in-command at News Corp., said in an interview with FORTUNE. “MySpace is the single biggest growth opportunity this company has.”
Further further reading
For the commute home, where your kids are tagging embarrassing pictures of you on Facebook,
- The Economist halts production for a month to let its readers catch up. (Or so says America’s finest news source.)
- The myth of the Fed’s “unprecedented”
Sky News, and the irregular plurals
Are we missing something here?
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is satisfied that News Corporation’s planned float-and-leaseback of Sky News would “address concerns about media plurality”. An independent board will keep Rupert Murdoch from setting BSkyB’s agenda,
Let the battle for Sky commence [updated]
Now that the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport has approved News Corp’s bid for BSkyB (as long as it spins off Sky News) the real fun can begin.
News Corp sources have told the FT that any Sky investor expecting to get more than 750p-800p for their shares is going to be sorely disappointed.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- UK still intends to refer News Corp/BSkyB merger to Competition Commission, but will consider remedies from parties — statement.
- Misys posts £161m H1 profit;
Cable guy unplugged
The market has delievered its verdict on Cablegate (Vincegate?) by marking shares in BSkyB higher on Wednesday morning:
That move reflects the fact that Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture,
News Corp’s little bundle of joy
We’ve said before that getting this deal done wouldn’t happen any time soon, even in Europe.
But there are signs that News Corp’s bid to buy out BSkyB might end up ruffling feathers closer to home — and this time could end up getting it blocked altogether.
What has caused the Rightmove? (updated)
This share price spike in Rightmove, the UK’s leading property search website, has caused some head scratching in the Square Mile on Friday morning.
But it is easily explained – a French rival has received a bid.
BSkyB investors should believe in better
As BSkyB shares retreated toward the 700p level in late London trading on Tuesday, News Corporation’s stock moved sharply higher in New York.
That’s even though a bid for the UK satellite company is supposed to be bad news,
Putting up the paywall
Murdoch said he was going to charge readers for online news, and here’s how he plans do it.
Presenting The Times and The Sunday Times paywall.
From a News International press release issued on Friday:
UAE vs NewsCorp
The leaders of the United Arab Emirates don’t take too kindly to criticism, according to a report by Zawya Dow Jones:
The Sunday London Times newspaper was removed by authorities from shelves in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday amid intensive reporting of Dubai’s debt problems,
Microsoft and News Corp discuss web alliance
Microsoft has discussed a plan with News Corp to “de-index” the media company’s news websites from Google. The Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft, which owns the rival Bing search engine, has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.