Deadline Rupert Murdoch

The just-released vote totals from News Corp‘s shareholders meeting today seem to show that independent investors overwhelmingly supported resolutions critical of management — and opposed controversial board candidates including James and Lachlan Murdoch, and Natalie Bancroft. I use the hedge word “seem” because to reach this conclusion you have to make a reasonable, but unproven, assumption based on the tallies the company reported in an SEC filing: that CEO Rupert Murdoch and his ally Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal cast the nearly 47% of the voting shares that they control in favor of management-supported positions. With their votes, all of the board candidates were elected and the company prevailed on controversial resolutions including one that would have required News Corp to have an independent director serve as chairman — taking the position away from Rupert.

Related: News Corp Critics Tell Shareholders That They’ll Continue To Challenge Murdoch’s Clout Read More »

UPDATE, 11:25 AM: A few more odds and ends from the News Corp shareholders meeting that just concluded on the Fox lot: Lachlan Murdoch — Rupert Murdoch‘s son, and a board member — didn’t show….One shareholder asked Rupert whether he’d consider adding a liberal columnist to The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page. “We don’t interfere” with the editorial side of the operation, he said. He added that the opinion editor is the same one who served before he bought the paper in 2007, “so there’s no change.”…Board member Andrew Knight answered a question about why directors subtracted company costs related to the hacking scandal for the profit figures they used to calculate executive bonuses. Had the costs been included, they could have reduced the bonuses by as much as 5%, he acknowledged….Questioned about his frequent and often controversial comments on Twitter, Murdoch delivered the response he frequently offers his critics. “When you buy the stock, you know what the company is,” he said. “If you don’t like it, don’t buy the stock.”…No questions about, or mention of, reports that James Murdoch might take control of Fox Broadcasting and several cable networks — or about the exit payment for indicted former News International chief Rebekah Brooks.

Related: News Corp Critics Win Symbolic, But Not Actual, Victories In Shareholder Votes

PREVIOUS, 10:44 AM: News Corp critics who want to dilute Rupert Murdoch’s power had their chance to speak during the company’s annual shareholders meeting on the Fox lot — after the CEO announced that their proposals had been voted down. Julie Tanner of Christian Brothers Investment Services said that it was a “conflict of interests” for Murdoch to serve both as CEO and board chairman. She called the reforms in News Corp’s ethics policies “timid” and warned that without structural changes scandals like the hacking and bribery ones in the UK “will cloud the company for the foreseeable future.” Murdoch barely paid attention to Tanner, but he locked eyes with Ian Greenwood of the UK Local Authorities Pension Fund when he advocated stripping Murdoch of the chairman role. “We want to thank you very much for making us a lot of money,” he said speaking to Murdoch directly, “but this won’t go away as an issue.” Greenwood added, “I’d urge you reconsider the issue .. give investors a timeline in the public arena.” Murdoch said that he and his family are aligned with other shareholders who want to “build a great company.” Read More »

That’s the most intriguing question ahead of the media giant’s annual shareholders’ meeting, to be held tomorrow in Los Angeles. The country’s two largest public pension funds — the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS)– say that they voted against re-electing CEO Rupert Murdoch and his sons, Deputy COO James Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch, to the board. (CalSTRS opposed the entire slate.) They’re also lined up to support a resolution by Christian Brothers Investment Services that would require the chairman to be independent of management. The anti-Murdoch efforts probably won’t prevail. The family controls 38.4% of the voting shares of News Corp and a close ally, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has 7%. Still, it could be a major embarrassment if half of the independent investors line up against the CEO. Several investors say that his concentrated power contributed to the lax oversight of the UK tabloids at the center of the company’s hacking and bribery scandals. Read More »

Even though the stock’s up 26.6% to $23.53 over the last three months, some analysts say the company isn’t about to run out of gas. This morning, Susquehanna Financial Group Vasily Karasyov says he expects “additional upside in the next 12 months” toward a target stock price of $28. That follows yesterday’s upgrade of News Corp stock to “overweight” from “neutral” by Barclays Equity Research’s Anthony DiClemente, who also has a target price of $28. Both analysts like the plan to spin the publishing operations off into a separate company. It should ease investor concerns that CEO Rupert Murdoch will make value-destroying deals, like his $5B acquisition of Dow Jones in 2007. That fear –which held the stock price down in what’s known as the ”Murdoch discount” — is “shrinking,” DiClemente says. “We are comfortable that there are no transformative and dilutive acquisitions coming down the pike.”

Related: Rupert Murdoch Collects $30 Million In Compensation For Fiscal 2012, A 10% Cut Read More »

Just about all of the top News Corp execs took a cut for the year that ended in June, even though the stock appreciated 33.2%. (The notable exception in the group is Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who was +35.4% to $21.1M including $4.1M in stock awards.) The company says in a proxy just filed at the SEC that in determining compensation the board considered the UK hacking and bribery scandals “including the closure of The News of the World, costs and expenses for the investigations, litigation and civil settlements, and the withdrawal of the proposal to acquire BSkyB.” But it also decided to base bonuses on a profit figure that doesn’t include the $224M in company payments to deal with the investigations. And for Deputy COO James Murdoch the Compensation Committee was “mindful” of his “decision to decline his entire fiscal 2011 annual bonus in light of the issues surrounding The News of the World and acknowledged that he was already adversely economically impacted by the U.K. and related investigations.”

Rupert Murdoch‘s $30M package includes $8.1M salary, $10.4M bonus, $3.5M in stock awards, $7.6M for pension and deferred compensation, and $384,611 in other compensation. COO Chase Carey follows with $24.8M, -17.9%. On paper, James Murdoch’s $16.8M is -6% — but since he didn’t take his $6M bonus, it’s actually +41%. Ailes’ package includes $67,773 for personal security and $155,091 for personal use of a corporate car — far more than any other exec received. Read More »