Posts tagged 'News Corporation'

Murdoch to do the splits? Really?

Paul Murphy is the founding editor of FT Alphaville.

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| Jun 26 2012 09:42 | Comment |

At the age of 81, we’d rather Rupert not attempt this in public. But what should we make of the WSJ’s story on Tuesday that News Corporation, the Murdochs’ parent company, is considering splitting in two?

The usual people claiming to be familiar with the situation say a plan is being considered whereby News Corp’s film and television interests would be carved off, leaving its newspapers, book publishing and education businesses as a separate entity. That would leave 20th century Fox, Fox News and the Fox broadcast network separate from newspapers, such as the Sun and the Times of London, as well as the HarperCollins book publishing business. Read more

Dowlers close to phone-hacking deal

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Sep 20 2011 05:09 | Comment |

News International is close to agreeing a £3m settlement with the family of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler for breaches of privacy that occurred when her phone was hacked by the News of the World. The FT says an agreement has yet to be signed, but citing two people familiar with its terms, reports that they included a payment of £2m to the family of 13-year-old Milly and a further payment of £1m to a charity of their choice. The settlement is far higher than those reached with celebrities in the phone-hacking scandal and raises the prospect of huge pay-outs for a number of families of victims who have been affected, lawyers said on Monday. Some press reports have claimed that News International has set aside about £20m for settling all cases, but one person close to the company’s strategy told the newspaper this sum may now prove inadequate. Read more

News Corp hacking pressure grows

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Sep 14 2011 05:30 | Comment |

Pressure on News Corp over its phone-hacking scandal is rising on three continents with fresh legal and political challenges, the FT reports. James Murdoch, the media group’s deputy chief operating officer, was on Tuesday recalled to a UK parliamentary committee to clear up accusations that he may have misled MPs. The recall came as thousands more documents relating to the phone-hacking scandal emerged. US investors also expanded a class action against his father Rupert’s media group, claiming that it had a “historic pattern of corruption”. And the Australian government prepared plans for an independent inquiry into media standards and regulation. Read more

Murdochs take $1bn hit on share falls

| Jul 18 2011 22:37 | Comment |

The value of the Murdoch family’s shareholding in News Corp has fallen by $1bn since the political firestorm erupted over the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, writes the FT. A 4.3 per cent slide in News Corp’s shares on Monday to $14.97 in New York left them down 17.4 per cent, or $8.3bn, since July 4, when news broke of the Millie Dowler hacking. The share fall came as Rupert Murdoch, News Corp chairman, and his son James braced for what looked likely to be a bruising appearance before a UK parliamentary committee on Tuesday. James’ BSkyB role is being increasingly questioned by investors, says Reuters. Read more

The good, the bad, and the ugly, News Corp edition

| Jul 18 2011 18:23 | Comment |

You’ve heard of good banks, bad banks, and toxic assets.

What about a good, bad and a toxic News Corporation? Read more

Rebekah Brooks quits, Murdoch stays defiant

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jul 15 2011 10:08 | Comment |

Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, has resigned, Sky News reports. Seperately, Rupert Murdoch told the WSJ, which he owns, that News Corp has made only “minor mistakes” and handled “extremely well” the crisis that has forced the closure of the News of the World and scuppered its BSkyB bid. The FT reports News Corp chairman and chief executive’s first extended comments on the tabloid scandal came as the FBI opened a probe into a claim that the News of the World may have sought access to messages on phones belonging to victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. Read more

News Corp abandons BSkyB bid

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jul 14 2011 09:16 | Comment |

Rupert Murdoch has bowed to intense political pressure and withdrawn News Corp’s planned bid to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting, after the company admitted public condemnation of phone hacking at his UK newspapers made the climate “too difficult,” the FT says. The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, says James Murdoch wanted to press ahead seeking regulatory approval for the bid, but was overruled by his father and News’ chief operating officer, Chase Carey. The report says Rupert Murdoch hopes to pursue the bid at a later date. The Guardian adds that News Corp’s current 39 per cent stake in BSkyB could also still be at risk from the “fit and proper” test for ownership being conducted by regulator Ofcom. Read more

BSkyB deal OFF

| Jul 13 2011 14:18 | Comment |

… says, er. Sky News.

RTRS-NEWS CORP <NWSA.O> TO WITHDRAW BID FOR BSKYB <BSY.L>-SKY NEWS Read more

News Corp loses $7bn in market value

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jul 12 2011 09:50 | Comment |

News Corp’s loss of $7bn in market value over four trading days shows investor concerns that a probe into alleged phone hacking by journalists at one London newspaper could have a broader impact on the company, according to Bloomberg. The slide is far out of proportion with the lost profits from closing the News of the World tabloid or from delaying the acquisition of tBritish Sky Broadcasting Group, some analysts say.  Rupert Murdoch desperately tried to keep alive his bid to take full control of BSkyB on Monday, the FT says, as his company was hit by fresh allegations his newspapers accessed the family health records and bank accounts of Gordon Brown when chancellor and prime minister. Meanwhile Reuters says that legal experts believed News Corp could become the subject of a bribery probe in the US, pointing to the Obama administration’s stepping up of bribery law enforcement in the past two years. Read more

Dow Jones chief under hacking pressure

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jul 11 2011 09:32 | Comment |

Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones, is being blamed by people close to News Corp, for failing to get to grips with the News of the World phone hacking scandal when he was in charge of Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper group, the FT reports. Hinton could become the most senior casualty of the crisis, deflecting blame from James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks. According to The Guardian, Hinton was among five News International executives who had access to the News of the World’s 2007 internal inquiry on hacking. Seperately, the FT says UK prime minister David Cameron is trying to find a way to delay News Corp’s takeover of British Sky Broadcasting in light of the hacking scandal. Read more

Snap news

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jul 08 2011 07:49 | Comment |

Breaking pre-market news on Friday,

- News Corporation files Form 8k to the SEC – statement.
 Read more

The Sun also rises

| Jul 07 2011 18:02 | Comment |

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 senior News International executives from UK prosecution? Is the BSkyB deal really safe? What does this say about James Murdoch’s decision making process? What will happen if hacking is found at other newspapers? How would the Sun replace the NOTW? Is this just an acceleration of plans to merge newsrooms? And so on. We’re confused) Read more

Murdoch denounces ’deplorable’ hacking

| Jul 06 2011 21:17 | Comment |

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, denounced the alleged phone-hacking at one of his British tabloid newspapers as “deplorable and unacceptable” as investors took fright at the reputational damage being inflicted on the global media group, writes the FT. Shares in News Corp fell 5.1 per cent in midday New York trading as shareholders feared that the political firestorm enveloping the News of the World newspaper could jeopardise News Corp’s chances of taking full control of British Sky Broadcasting, its highly profitable UK satellite broadcaster. Read more

Snap news

| Apr 28 2011 07:58 | Comment |

Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,

- Deutsche Bank reports first quarter 2011 net income of €2.1bn; but results from Banco Santander disappoint — statement and statement. Read more

Further further reading

| Apr 19 2011 22:22 | Comment |

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.) Read more

Snap news

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Mar 03 2011 07:52 | Comment |

Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,

- Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport says he intends to approve News Corp bid for BSkyB — statement. Read more

News Corp adds Shine to the family

| Feb 21 2011 20:45 | Comment |

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp announced on Monday that it was buying his daughter Elisabeth’s television production company – Shine Group – for £415m ($673m) including debt, reports the FT. Ms Murdoch, 42, will take a seat on the board of News Corp for the first time since 2001. At that time, she fell out with the management of British Sky Broadcasting, which is part-owned by the US media group and where she was a senior executive, and left to found Shine. BSkyB – of which News Corp is trying to buy the 60.9 per cent it does not own – has 13 per cent of Shine shares, Sony Entertainment has 20 per cent, Ms Murdoch 53 per cent and the rest is divided among management. Read more

Sky high, Digger humbled

| Jan 27 2011 10:42 | Comment |

Wanna know why Rupert Murdoch is determined to get the buyout of BSkyB done in a hurry?

Just take a look at Thursday’s half results from the Pay-TV company. Read more

Snap news

| Jan 27 2011 07:53 | Comment |

Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,

- OFT will not refer equity underwriting market to the Competition Commission for investigation — statement. Read more

All we are saying, is give Murdoch a chance

| Jan 25 2011 08:15 | Comment |

Amazing.

Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, has decided to bend over backwards to help News Corporation win control of BSkyB. Read more

Snap news

| Nov 04 2010 07:52 | Comment |

Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,

- Vince Cable refers News Corp bid for BSkyB to Ofcom — statement. Read more

Dear Vince…

| Oct 12 2010 09:30 | Comment |


Related link:
Public interest intervention pursuant to Enterprise Act 2002 – Slaughter and May Read more

News Corp’s long wait

| Jun 22 2010 10:58 | Comment |

Chase Carey, News Corporation’s chief operating officer, reckons regulators could clear a bid for satellite broadcaster BSkyB in six months.

Nobody else does. Read more

Blue BSkyB thinking (updated)

| Jun 15 2010 09:57 | Comment |

The price action in BSkyB on Tuesday morning following confirmation a highly conditional proposal from its biggest shareholder News Corporation.

 Read more

BSkyB seeks extra £1bn from Murdoch

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jun 15 2010 09:56 | Comment |

British Sky Broadcasting’s directors have demanded another £1bn from News Corporation for Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate to take full control of the satellite broadcaster, the FT reports. BSkyB’s independent directors on Tuesday swiftly rejected a proposal, worth £7.8bn or 700p a share, from News Corp for the remaining 61 per cent of the satellite broadcaster it does not already own. News Corp’s offer would value BSkyB’s total equity at more than £12bn. For more see FT Alphaville. Read more

Murdoch considers cash pile options

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| May 05 2010 03:11 | Comment |

News Corp will decide within three months what to do with its growing cash pile, Rupert Murdoch said on Tuesday, as his media empire again raised its profit outlook in the clearest signal of a strong rebound in advertising revenues, reports the FT. The $2.7bn (£1.8bn) box office success of 3D epic Avatar helped propel a 19 per cent jump in revenues for the company in the three months to March. Read more

Friday rumourtrage (updated)

| Mar 12 2010 09:32 | Comment |

Here’s an intriguing News Corp rumour breaking on Friday, says FT Alphaville – Rupert Murdoch may be planning to buy out the 60 per cent of a satellite broadcaster that he doesn’t own already. Read more