Is Murdoch really done with Time Warner?

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Rupert Murdoch21st Century Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch recently stated that he has no intention of making a new effort to acquire Time Warner. But another member of the mogul class who knows Murdoch is not so sure.


The individual is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al Saud, for whom the wealth estimates begin at $20B and go up from there.

To Alwaleed, the acquisition of TW by Murdoch’s global media empire makes perfect sense. According to a CNN report, he said, “Combining both companies would have been a dream proposal because the amount of content the combined company would have had would have been tremendous.”

He said that Murdoch simply accepted the fact that the transaction was not only against the wishes of TW management, it was also against the wishes of his own shareholders.

But given that, he observed, “Knowing Mr. Murdoch I think the idea is still in his mind.”

So the takeaway is to not be surprised if Murdoch is back knocking on TW’s door with a proposal in hand should conditions become more favorable down the road.

Alwaleed has stakes in both of those companies, as well as competing media conglomerations Disney.