Showing posts with label SEC filings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEC filings. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Save the date | Q2 results out Feb. 2 (New York)
The company will report its fiscal second-quarter financial results on Tuesday, Feb. 2, at 4 p.m. ET (New York), after the close of American stock markets. It has scheduled a 4:30 p.m. conference call with Wall Street media stock analysts that same day.
Murdoch, prince in talks over Rotana investment
[Meeting: Murdoch, Alwaleed]
The meetings between CEO Rupert Murdoch and Saudi billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal focused on a deal where News Corp. would buy 10% of entertainment conglomerate Rotana Media Services. Alwaleed owns 7% of News Corp., making it the company's single-biggest investor after the Murdoch family.
Rotana, which hosts NWS's Fox channels in Saudi Arabia on its TV network, also owns rights to more than 2,000 Arabic movies and the world's largest Arabic language music library, The Wall Street Journal reports today.
Over the past two decades Prince Alwaleed, through his Riyadh-listed conglomerate Kingdom Holding Co., has focused his investments on banks, hotels and media firms, the WSJ says. It owns 7% of News Corp., according to the most recent proxy statement to shareholders. Kingdom also has built sizable stakes in companies including News Corp., Citigroup, Apple and Time Warner.
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
In new profile, powerful Ailes leaves rivals behind
The creator of News Corp.'s profit engine -- Fox News -- is believed responsible for $700 million in operating earnings for the parent company, more than CNN, MSNBC and the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC and CBS combined, The New York Times says today in a must-read profile of CEO Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man.
That success has put Roger Ailes (left) "at the pinnacle of power in three corridors of American life: business, media and politics,'' the NYT's David Carr and Tim Arango report. "In addition to being the best-paid person in the News Corporation last year, he is the most successful news executive of the last 10 years, and his network exerts a strong influence on the fractured conservative movement."
Ailes is well-paid for his outsized contributions to NWS' bottom line: he made $23.7 million last fiscal year in salary, bonuses and other compensation -- more than Murdoch, who got $19.9 million. Ailes' annual pay was more than double the $10.9 million he received in 2007, according to the August 2009 proxy report to shareholders, a public document filed annually with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
His influence extends well beyond the Fox News franchise. The Times says Ailes threatened to quit when he heard that Murdoch was going to endorse Barack Obama via the editorial page of the New York Post -- an allegation that Ailes denies.
But he isn't universally loved within the Murdoch empire or his family. In a strikingly candid statement, Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud, an influential publicist in London, told the Times: "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to."
Freud is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, a London television producer; she is one of Murdoch's three adult children.
What's more, the NYT notes, Lachlan Murdoch (left) -- Rupert's eldest son, and once his heir-apparent -- quit a senior News Corp. post in 2004 when he felt Ailes was encroaching on his corporate territory.
Conspicuously absent in the story are any views on Ailes held by the third child, James, 36, the only one of the siblings employed in the company. James is chairman and CEO of the company's operations in Europe and Asia. He's also a member of the board of directors, and is seen as a likely successor to Rupert.
Moreover, Ailes' position as a megaphone for right-leaning causes and candidates has made him a high-profile target among his most rabid critics. "His movements now are shadowed by a phalanx of corporate-provided security,'' the NYT reports. "He travels to and from work in a miniature convoy of two sport utility vehicles."
His security benefit cost NWS $54,494 last fiscal year, the August proxy report says.
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
[Today's New York Post, Newseum]
That success has put Roger Ailes (left) "at the pinnacle of power in three corridors of American life: business, media and politics,'' the NYT's David Carr and Tim Arango report. "In addition to being the best-paid person in the News Corporation last year, he is the most successful news executive of the last 10 years, and his network exerts a strong influence on the fractured conservative movement."Ailes is well-paid for his outsized contributions to NWS' bottom line: he made $23.7 million last fiscal year in salary, bonuses and other compensation -- more than Murdoch, who got $19.9 million. Ailes' annual pay was more than double the $10.9 million he received in 2007, according to the August 2009 proxy report to shareholders, a public document filed annually with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
His influence extends well beyond the Fox News franchise. The Times says Ailes threatened to quit when he heard that Murdoch was going to endorse Barack Obama via the editorial page of the New York Post -- an allegation that Ailes denies.But he isn't universally loved within the Murdoch empire or his family. In a strikingly candid statement, Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud, an influential publicist in London, told the Times: "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to."
Freud is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, a London television producer; she is one of Murdoch's three adult children.
What's more, the NYT notes, Lachlan Murdoch (left) -- Rupert's eldest son, and once his heir-apparent -- quit a senior News Corp. post in 2004 when he felt Ailes was encroaching on his corporate territory.Conspicuously absent in the story are any views on Ailes held by the third child, James, 36, the only one of the siblings employed in the company. James is chairman and CEO of the company's operations in Europe and Asia. He's also a member of the board of directors, and is seen as a likely successor to Rupert.
Moreover, Ailes' position as a megaphone for right-leaning causes and candidates has made him a high-profile target among his most rabid critics. "His movements now are shadowed by a phalanx of corporate-provided security,'' the NYT reports. "He travels to and from work in a miniature convoy of two sport utility vehicles."
His security benefit cost NWS $54,494 last fiscal year, the August proxy report says.
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
[Today's New York Post, Newseum]
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Stock | In new SEC filings, a Murdoch puzzler
[A newly filed document for director James Murdoch; bigger view]
I'm pretty good at reading obscure company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. But a series of new ones filed yesterday on behalf of about a dozen News Corp. board members has left me stumped. Maybe someone reading this post can help.
These are Form 4 filings, public documents disclosing transactions by insiders. Most of them concern relatively small numbers of shares, some in the form of what look like options. Two of them, however, involve much larger blocks of shares held by director James Murdoch (left), who also is head of the company's operations in Europe and Asia. He is, of course, one of CEO Rupert Murdoch's adult children, and a likely heir-apparent to his father.Although both were filed yesterday, they cover two different transaction dates: Jan. 1, 2009, and Jan. 1, 2010. The 2009 document is here; 2010's is here. The number of shares described is virtually identical in both cases. The one I've posted above is the more recent.
As I interpret them, Murdoch is acquiring and immediately selling 133,333 shares of NWS for $13.69 each, for a total price of $1.8 million. Can anyone confirm my calculation?
Related: all the company's recent SEC filings on News Corp.'s investor relations page
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
As industry shrinks, News Corp.'s workforce grew
Even after a dip from last year, News Corp.'s company-wide employment has grown in recent years -- as other newspaper publishers slash-and-burn payrolls. The number of workers rose 25%, to 55,000, as of June 30 of this year vs. June 30, 2005, according to the company's most recent annual reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (Chart, above, shows total full-time and part-time workers at June 30 for each of the years indicated.)Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
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