Many readers of this item now have a larger stake in News Corporation than does Lachlan Murdoch. The CEO’s eldest son cashed out another $28.1 million of company shares on Monday. We’re still awaiting confirmation that he and other partners are buying Nielsen’s trade publications.
With the sale of 2,289,316 shares which had been held by a trust, an SEC filing says Lachlan Murdoch now owns only 456 shares of News Corporation which he holds directly outside the trust. The latest stock sale came just a few weeks after Lachlan Murdoch had sold about half of the stake he’d held in the company run by his father, Rupert Murdoch.
So, in recent weeks Lachlan Murdoch has raised $55.7 million from selling News Corporation shares, all but eliminating him as a company shareholder. The stock liquidation came on the heels of cutting a deal to buy a stake in an Australian radio group and as rumors swirled that his Illyria investment company would be a major part of a group negotiating to buy Nielsen Business Media.
RBR-TVBR observation: Talk about cutting the cord! This certainly makes it clear that Lachlan does not plan on trying to succeed his father as head of News Corp., where younger brother James has been the heir-apparent since Lachlan quit his News Corp. positions in 2005 and moved to Australia.
