View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

Major shareholder urges News Corp to sell newspapers

By Andrew Pugh

News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has been urged by its third-biggest shareholder to sell off its newspaper businesses.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Kevin Holt, a senior fund manager at the investment management company Invesco, said he wants the company to sell “all the newspaper businesses,” adding: ‘It’s a digital world now and the competitive advantage that newspapers had has been competed away.”

The company – whose papers include The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times in the UK and the Wall Street Journal and New York Post in the US – has been widely criticised for its handling of the phone-hacking scandal which led to the eventual closure of the News of the World in July.

‘Was I disappointed with the UK situation? Yes, for sure,” Holt said. “But we don’t own the stock because of the UK newspaper print business. We own it despite the UK newspapers.”

Invesco owns around 14m of the key B News Corp shares that carry voting rights, according to the Sunday Telegraph

News Corp managed to defeat attempts to remove several key members of its board at its AGM in Los Angeles on Friday, including Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, but Invesco declined to comment when asked how it had voted on the board’s re-election.

The sell-off call from Invesco comes days after News Corp’s UK newspaper business News International announced plans to cut up to 150 editorial staff The Times and The Sunday Times, with the company citing continuing economic uncertainly and a huge surge in the cost of newsprint.

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

The Sunday Telegraph reported that the majority of News Corp’s shareholders are attracted to the company’s cable TV business in the US, rather than its newspaper interests, and consider it to be a ‘key driver of profits’under the company’s chief operating officer Chase Carey.

Holt to the paper that if Chase was to leave News Corp he would ‘have to seriously reconsider my position in the company”.

  • To contact the Press Gazette newsdesk call 020 7936 6433 or email pged@pressgazette.co.uk

Topics in this article :

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network