Tuesday, June 26, 2012

News Corp shares rise on reports of asset split



Shares in News Corporation have risen 2.4% in Australia following reports that the company may be split in two.
The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, said that the TV and entertainment businesses would be separated from publishing.
The Murdoch family, which has 40% of the voting shares, would retain control of both.
The split would put the 39% stake in BSkyB in a separate company from its scandal-hit UK newspapers.
News Corp declined to comment on the reports.
"This will be widely seen as a non-denial confirmation, since News Corp has in the past shot down other reports of its plans to quarantine the hacking debacle," said BBC business editor Robert Peston.
The reported split would put film and television businesses including 20th Century Fox and the Fox broadcasting network in one company.

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One potentially significant benefit is that BSkyB would be distanced from the British newspapers where the alleged lawbreaking took place - and so the risk of Ofcom stripping BSkyB of its broadcasting licence would presumably be diminished”
The other company would contain publishing businesses such as the Wall Street Journal and the Times newspaper, as well as the HarperCollins publishing house.
The publishing business would be the smaller of the two, representing around 25% of current News Corp revenues and 10% of profits, Robert Peston said.
Media consultant Theresa Wise said preventing a "reputational bleed" from the newspapers involved in the hacking scandal to the other parts of the business was not the only reason the split would make sense.
"The media side of the business is a much faster growth business... the publishing side of the business, the books and the newspapers, are very slow or no-growth businesses," she told BBC News.
"The whole company of News Corp is less highly valued because investors can't split out the slow growth from the faster growth."

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