Rupert Murdoch's son and heir apparent at the News Corporation, Lachlan Murdoch, abruptly resigned from his executive posts at the media company on Friday and said he was moving back to Australia with his family.
His departure raises fresh questions about executive succession at one of the world's most successful and powerful media companies. Though Rupert Murdoch, 74, has refused to publicly pick a successor, it was widely believed that he favored Lachlan, his oldest son, to replace him as chief executive and chairman upon his retirement.
The company said Lachlan Murdoch, 33, would remain on News Corporation's board but would relinquish his executive posts, which include deputy chief operating officer. He is also the publisher of the New York Post.
PHOTO: AP
"I look forward to returning home to Australia with my wife, Sarah, and son, Kalan, in the very near future. I would like especially to thank my father for all he has taught me in business and in life. It is now time for me to apply those lessons to the next phase of my career," he said in a statement.
Rupert Murdoch said: "I am particularly saddened by my son's decision and thanked him for his terrific contribution to the company, and also his agreement to stay on the board and advise us in a number of areas."
With Lachlan's departure, the front runners to replace Rupert Murdoch now are James Murdoch, his 32-year-old son who runs the company's British satellite-TV operation, and Peter Chernin, News Corp's president and chief operating officer.
"The investment community has an interest in figuring this out as well because you would probably come down on the side, in the near term, of Peter Chernin vs his sons. We are in kind of an ambiguous place right now," said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
Though Murdoch has long wanted one of his sons to succeed him, investors and analysts prefer Chernin, 51, with his greater experience and lack of family ties.
"From an investor's standpoint there was an ongoing fear of nepotism that is lifted, or at least partially lifted, by his departure," Richard Greenfield, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners, said referring to Lachlan Murdoch.
Other media companies like Disney have eyed Chernin as a candidate for top jobs, a factor that could play into the thinking of News Corp's board, which would not want to see such a senior executive leave to join a competitor.
Greenfield said he doesn't expect Lachlan Murdoch's decision to have any significant impact on News Corp.'s operations, because Rupert Murdoch and Chernin remain in control.
"It further cements the fact that if anything happens to Murdoch in the next year or two that Peter Chernin, the No. 2, will take his place," he said.
Rupert Murdoch built News Corp from a small Australian newspaper company that he inherited from his father into one of the world's biggest and most prominent media companies over the course of several decades. Now based in New York, it owns or controls properties that include the Fox network, the Times of London and DirecTV. The Murdoch family's 30 percent stake in the company is the largest of any entity.
But how much control the family will be able to maintain has recently been called into question. Liberty Media, which is led by Murdoch's friend and sometime business ally John Malone, has amassed an 18 percent stake in News Corp and may be considering buying even more shares. News Corporation and Liberty executives have been in negotiations over the matter.
News Corp shares were down US$0.14 to US$17.43 in New York trading at midday on Friday.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
AMAZING ABUNDANCE: Elon Musk has announced plans for a new facility in Texas which would manufacture chips for Tesla and SpaceX to use in robotics and AI Elon Musk said his Terafab project — a grand plan to eventually manufacture his own chips for robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and space data centers — would be built in Austin and jointly run by Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX). Musk, the chief executive officer of the two companies, said he would start off with an “advanced technology fab” in Austin that would have all of the equipment necessary to make chips of any kind. The project would call for one day supporting 1 terawatt (TW) of computing power per year, the amount Musk expects the companies to
RSS