News Corporation: Who, Where, How Much?

Head office
2 Holt St.
Sydney, 2010, Australia
Phone: +61-2-9288-3000
Fax: +61-2-9288-3292
www.newscorp.com
Share Value
See: www.newscorp.com/investor/stock_quotes.html
Employees
Over 35,000 worldwide.
Revenue
On December 31, 2003 Newscorp reported its revenues had increased 19% to $5.6 bn. Net profit was £361 million.7
Board of Director
K. Rupert Murdoch
Chairman and Chief Executive
Geoffrey C. Bible
A director since 1998, sixty-six year old Bible is also Chairman of Wagga Enterprises. In 2001, Bible was rated as sixty-sixth on world executive pay.8 Between 1991 and 2002, Bible personally donated $131,000 to political parties, candidates and political action commitees (PACS).9
Up until his retirment in 2002, Bible was CEO of Philip Morris (now known as the Altria Group). As head of Philip Morris, Bible said it would be 'very un-American' to suggest tobacco companies should not be involved in helping the World Health Organization (WHO) develop regulations for tobacco companies. He went on to suggest that:
'This organization [the WHO] has extraordinary influence on government and consumers and we must find a way to diffuse this and reorient their activities to their prescribed mandate.'10
Chase Carey
Executive director since 1996, Carey is also President and CEO of Hughes Electronics, Inc.
Peter Chernin
Executive Director, President and Chief Operating Officer since 1996.
Kenneth E. Cowley
Director since 1997, Cowley is also Chairman of RM Williams Holdings Ltd.
David F. DeVoe
Director since 1990, DeVoe is also Chief Financial Officer and Senior Executive Vice President.
Rod Eddington
Director of Newscorp and Chief Executive of British Airways. Prior to joining British Airways, Eddington was Managing Director of Cathay Pacific. Following the end of a strike by the Flight Attendants Union, Eddington said he had learnt two lessons. First, that there was a need for tougher labour laws – including legislation allowing firms to sack strikers and force unions into ‘cooling-off periods’. Second, that it was important to try and win such battles in the media. Reflecting on press coverage of the strike, he said:
‘Clearly, when it was 4,000 pretty girls against a bunch of old men in grey suits, we didn’t stand a chance. But that didn’t mean we didn’t have to try.’
When Eddington, now at British Airways, joined the Newscorp board in 1999, winning battles in the media became much easier. Without revealing Eddington’s involvement with its parent company, 'The Sun' launched a one-sided attack against the GMB during the Heathrow dispute. According to the News Corp newspaper, strikers were recreating ‘1970s anarchy’, spoiling honeymoons and motivated by ‘sheer spite and bloody-mindedness’.11
Andrew S.B. Knight
Director since 1991, Knight is also Director of Rothschild Investment Trust C.P. He has also been editor of the Economist (1974 – 1986) and the Daily Telegraph (1986 – 1989).
Graham Kraehe
Director since 2002, Kraehe is also Chairman of BHP Steel Limited.
Lachlan Murdoch
Rupert's son is currently working as Deputy Chief Operating Officer of News Corporation. According to Colin James, a business consultant in Australia and New Zealand, Lachlan is 'best known for having failed spectacularly in a telecom venture'. The failed venture is One.Tel Ltd., a telecommunications company that Lachlan Murdoch invested heavily in with James Packer, son of another Australian media mogul, Kerry Packer, in 1999. In the end, the project reportedly lost News Corp. more than $500 million.12
Thomas J. Perkins
Non-executive director since 1996, Perkins has been a Director of Hewlett-Packard Company since 2002 and was a Director of Compaq Computer Corporation from 1997 until 2002.
Stanley S. Shuman
Non-Executive Director since 1982, Shuman has been a Managing Director of investment banking firm, Allen & Company LLP, since 1970. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Schuman is also chairman of the Center for New York City Law and served 19 years as a member of the Financial Control Board for the City of New York.
Arthur M. Siskind
Director and Group General Counsel of News Corporation since 1991, Siskind has also been Senior Executive Vice President of News Corporation since 1996.
Subsidiaries
Newscorp has around 800 subsidiaries worldwide.13 UK holding company, Newscorp Investments, has 101 subsidiaries. According to Matthew Lynn, a columnist for Bloomberg News, News Corp. owns more than 15 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, and more than 40 in the British Virgin Islands.14
References
7'Earnings releases: 2nd Qtr - FY04 - December 31, 2003.' See: www.newscorp.com/investor/download/Us2q04pr.pdf. Viewed: 20.04.04
8'Altria Group,' Forbes. See: www.forbes.com/finance/lists/38/2002/LIR.jhtml?passListId=38&
passYear=2002&passListType=Company&uniqueId=J0EQ&datatype=Company. Viewed: 29.03.04
9'Major Individual Donors of Philip Morris,' Opensecrets.org. See: www.opensecrets.org/orgs/topindivs.asp?ID=D000000067&ContribID=I0000000022&Display=ID&Sort=A. Viewed: 29.03.04
10'Philip Morris Backs Tobacco Rules,' Larry O'Dell, The Associated Press, 26.04.01. See: www.gasp.org/pmmtg01.html. Viewed: 29.03.04
11'Putting the ass into asset-stripper,' Solomon Hughes, Red Pepper, Sep 2003. See: www.redpepper.org.uk/KYE/x-kye-Sep2003.html. Viewed: 21.04.04
12'Murdoch, the Next Generation,' Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher, 16.12.02. See: www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1778324. Viewed: 06.05.04.
13'No accounting for tax havens,' Austin Mitchell, Prem Sikka, John Cristensen, Philip Morris, Steven Filling, Association for Accountancy & Business Affairs. See: http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:xKKMc6xpW84J:visar.csustan.edu/
aaba/Noaccountingfortaxhavens.pdf+newscorp+subsidiaries&hl=en. Viewed: 26.04.04
14'Billionaire companies,' Matthew Lynn. See: www.geocities.com/taxhavens123/Billionaire_companies.html. Viewed: 26.04.04
	 	
Category:Transnational Corporations