Investors Campaign To Oust Murdochs From News Corp

Hugh Pickens writes "Alan Mutter writes that the California Public Employees Retirement System, the nation's largest pension fund, has become the latest investor to say it would vote against the re-election of Rupert Murdoch and his sons to the company's board of directors, joining several other institutional investors opposed to the tenure of not only the Murdoch trio but also most of the rest of the leader's hand-picked board. 'The company appears to have devolved into a free-wheeling, cut-throat and paranoid culture that reached its logical conclusion in the phone-hacking scandal at The News of the World, where deceit and naked ambition trumped common decency, good judgment and even simple compliance with the law,' writes Mutter... Further proof of the anything-goes atmosphere at News Corp was supplied last week when the Guardian reported that ... the European edition of the Wall Street Journal evidently sold access to its news columns and created back-channel payment networks to lift the otherwise sagging circulation of the paper... 'It's not clear whether the outside shareholders have the votes to change anything at a corporation where Murdoch effectively controls 40% of the shares,' concludes Mutter, 'But adult supervision most certainly is in order, because News Corp. seems to be operating with only the sketchiest of business plans and no effective executive oversight of his many far-flung initiatives. '"

Comments

Oh I understand their business plan

[SlippyToad]

'But adult supervision most certainly is in order, because News Corp. seems to be operating with only the sketchiest of business plans and no effective executive oversight of his many far-flung initiatives

It's to terrorize a modern democracy into giving over control of our every institution to unelected morons with a bare-knuckled agenda of self-enrichment.

Fuck Fox News. Fuck Everyone Who Listens To Fox News. Fuck Everyone Who Opens Their Dumb Fuck Mouth On Fox News. Fox News Should Be Pulled Apart By Wild Weasels.

I've about had it with these vandals. Fucking freaks!

Re:Oh I understand their business plan

[Nimey]

However, the organization is intended as such.

Would It Change?

[Greyfox]

Fox and its affiliates got where they are by selling an elaborate and real-seeming fictional world, catering to people who could be convinced to wear Tinfoil hats if enough of the people on the network repeated that it was a good idea. I don't think it would be as profitable if people who believe everything they hear were to become better informed. What if those people started to think for themselves? They might start listening to other news sources! Perhaps even NPR! Then Fox would actually HAVE to be a legitimate news organization, or their core audience might realize how full of shit they are, come out of their bunkers, sell off their gold and start living less fearful lives! That would be devastating to Newscorp's bottom line!

Which is why I'm voting my 11% shares to keep Murdoch. Sorry guys!

Tech news?

[grimmjeeper]

I know stories like this generate a lot of traffic but what does this have to do with tech news?

Re:Tech news?

[The Dawn Of Time]

It's a Slashdotter masturbation frenzy. Everyone will get in with a comment about how they're so smart for not believe anything on Fox news, and they'll try to top each other in contests of cleverness by substituting "Faux" for "Fox" because nothing impresses the ladies like snide misspellings.

I know Murdoch is crooked...

[rolfwind]

But CA Public Employees Retirement System sounds left wing already, and if I were a worker, I'd be pissed that they're using my pension $ to play politics instead of simply focusing on good companies and divesting themselves of bad ones.

Re:I know Murdoch is crooked...

[truthsearch]

Better policy would be to not invest in News Corp at all.

News Corp. seems to be operating with only the sketchiest of business plans and no effective executive oversight of his many far-flung initiatives

Then why are they, or anyone else seeking a successful investment, owing part of the company? If no one wanted the stock it would devalue itself and the rest of the owners, including the Murdochs, would lose money.

Re:I know Murdoch is crooked...

[trims]

Please. Public Pension systems are one of the last bastions of Good left in this country. And, I'm not talking about the pension system itself, I'm talking about some very, very responsible fund managers who run them (not just CALPers, but most state's public pension systems). These folks are paid significantly less than equivalent ones on Wall Street, and they put in a huge effort to get good returns for their funds. Part of that effort is to be more pro-active than a typical Wall Streeter, and not just game the system, but FIX the system.

So, you're strategy is "cut and run"? Where? Oh, to another company where the culture sucks so bad because the stockholders are sheep. The pension funds are right - they have to fight, since there's no where to move their money that isn't in some way corrupted by the current international "corporate culture standard".

There have been some major efforts by public pension systems (just in the past year, I can remember efforts from Louisiana, Wisconsin, New York, and even South Carolina) to reform the way companies are run. This has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with maximizing the pension's ROI - after all, that $100 million the board just paid the CEO comes right out of stockholder's pockets. Public pension systems are at the forefront of the reform movement, and it's all in very much self interest.

In the Murdoch's case, fighting to oust them can only HELP the ROI - NewsCorp is incurring massive losses (legal, circulation, etc.) directly due to the Murdoch-installed culture. Replace that culture with a more sane one, and the ROI goes back up.

It's not politics, folks, it's money. Pure self-interest, just it happens to be wielded for Good this time.

-Erik

Re:I know Murdoch is crooked...

[PCM2]

But CA Public Employees Retirement System sounds left wing already, and if I were a worker, I'd be pissed that they're using my pension $ to play politics instead of simply focusing on good companies and divesting themselves of bad ones.

If large, institutional investors don't take an active hand in steering public corporations, who will? Do you honestly think that if we posted about it to Facebook enough, all the individual investors would take time to fill out their shareholder ballots and vote the Murdochs off the board? If CalPERS was responsible for my retirement security, I not only would expect it to wield as much influence as it could over its holdings to secure long-term growth, but I would also expect it to steer those organizations in a direction that does not send them down the path of graft, corruption, and criminal misconduct. You seem to advocate CalPERS taking its ball and going home. I say it's far better for American workers and the U.S. economy for CalPERS to help keep corporations like News Corp accountable, responsible, forthright, upstanding, and most of all legal.

Re:CALPERS

[OldeTimeGeek]

They've been doing this for years. When it was fashionable to disinvest in South Africa, CalPers was there. There has been debate off and on about disinvesting in tobacco firms and other forms of social ills. What they're asking for here is new.

The structural problems have been ignored because, like the remainder California budget, nobody in the Legislature wants to take on a problem that can't easily be expressed in a sound bite. Every new year sees new smoke and mirror schemes pushing problems into the future in the vain hope the economy will get better. Then everybody can go back to ignoring deep structural problems in how pensions are funded in favor of short term things that will annoy no one and help them stay in office.

Re:CALPERS

[demonbug]

You can try to spin this whatever way you want, but facts are facts. CALPers is trying to tank a stock it owns, to the financial detriment of the people CALPers represents.

Bullshit. They point out several major problems that have cropped up at News International recently. Illegal activity that appears to have been approved (or at least knowingly ignored) at the highest levels, selling access to supposed news columns, and little or no oversight from the board. These issues have the potential to very rapidly destroy the company; CalPERS, along with other institutional and private investors, are looking for a way to bring some oversight to the top-level executives, which happen to be Murdoch and family (among others). Yes, Rupert Murdoch has been very effective in building value over time - but recent events have shown that, whether through a failure to properly oversee operations or willing participation in these activities, they are taking much greater risks than some investors are comfortable with. It isn't the ideology espoused by the News Corp outlets that is at issue - that hasn't changed since CalPERS and the others invested, and frankly most of them probably don't care as long as the returns are good - it is the policies of the corporate leadership that they see as trending towards corruption.

That isn't to discount the fact that CalPERS members are likely to be largely opposed to the ideological viewpoint espoused by many of the News Corp properties. CalPERS has, in the past, moved out of industries it has ideological problems with (or specific companies) on numerous occassions. But to say that they would intentionally destroy the value in a stock they plan on (apparently) continuing to hold is just letting your own ideology color your view of events. News Corp seems to be out of control, from the perspective of some of the investors. They want more oversight of executive activities and decisions in order to reduce the risk of being blindsided by continued negligence (or criminal activity), which means removing or diluting the Murdochs' presence on the board.

But yeah, more fun just to yell and scream that the evil liberals are trying to silence the voice of conservatives.