Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has backtracked on a plan to merge News Corporation and Fox Corporation, which would have reunited the publishing and television and entertainment businesses into a single company, after their 2013 spin-off.
In separate communications, the boards of directors of both companies confirmed having received a letter from Rupert Murdoch withdrawing the proposal to explore a possible combination between News Corp and Fox Corporation.
In this sense, they indicated that the nonagenarian businessman of Australian origin, who is a US national, as well as his eldest son, Lachlan K. Murdoch, who holds the position of CEO of Fox, “have determined that a combination is not optimal for shareholders of News Corp and Fox at this time.”
As a result of this action, both the special committee of the board of directors of News Corp and that of Fox Corporation have been dissolved.
Fox Corporation operates the conservative Fox News channel, as well as Fox Sports and Fox TV Stations, while News Corporation is the parent of ‘The Wall Street Journal’, ‘New York Post’, HarperCollins and other publications.
