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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. '"
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!
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Which is why I'm voting my 11% shares to keep Murdoch. Sorry guys!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Unfortunately, CALPers seems to get into this "politics is more important than fiduciary responsibility to our members" mode these days.
The people they don't like, Murdoch, makes money to support their member's pension. The people they like, New York Times et. al., don't.
The problem is, and I have friends in CALPers (and CALStrs for teachers) and if it rolls over, it is so big, no one even the U.
S. Treasury could save it.
This is probably the most serious and ignored issue in the Country.
Yeah because engaging in illegal activities is just fine. Moron.
I know stories like this generate a lot of traffic but what does this have to do with tech news?
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.
Fox News Should Be Pulled Apart By Wild Weasels.
What did wild weasels ever do to you?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Good, I hope they do oust the evil old bastard.
Then maybe we can get rid of FOXs other owner, the known terrorist bankroller Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Politically motivated: outing the Murdochs is very likely to be value destructive.
CALPERS' fiduciary duty is to maximize the value of fund assets - not to take political postures.
A fairly major breach of ERISA regulations if they go ahead with this.
And why, exactly, don't they just ask police in all involved countries to investigate the papers and board for fraud? 40% means jack shit if RICO and similar laws are applied to the board.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Because supporting a media which itself funds a campaign against the retirement benefits which they are supposed to provide makes sense?
I thought Rupert's website paywalls were going to fix all their problems.
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.
Well hey, smuggling drugs makes a lot of money, so is the responsible fiduciary measure to invest heavily in Mexican drug cartels?
Hurm... how many want to bet that absolutely none of this will make Fox News at 11 tonight?
No, this is a good thing. Hopefully people wake up to this new form of democracy. Where if you don't act morally and for the benefit of employees, customers, and the earth then we pull our umpteen millions or billions out of your company now. Government has been dysfunctional for over thirty years in America. William Greider covered this in The Soul of Capitalism where he predicted this very thing. He said that people would start to act through their enormous pension funds to affect change in the world because government simply can't get it done, and it is easier to do this than to change government. Awesome. Get it done.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
They are holding onto a large amount of the stock while simultaneously trying to undermine the leadership which made it blossom, and all-the-while their claim is not that new leadership would increase the value of the stock but instead that the current leadership is distasteful to their ideology.
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.
"His name was James Damore."
"No, this is a good thing. Hopefully people wake up to this new form of democracy."
It's not a "new form of democracy", it's a legal owner exerting its right to have a say in how its investment ought to be managed. Why are all the crazed shills against shareholder rights and shareholder value now?
If this owner believes that doing sleazy unethical things are bad for its investment or just because they're immoral, then so what? It's not "fox news", it's the phone hacking and the falsifying the european circulation with various schemes etc which give good cause to believe the current management is a danger to its long-term investment.
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.
Your argument is that the News Corp stock will go down if the Murdochs are ousted... Do you think the decline and scuttling of News of the World was good for the share price? The share price tends to disagree (it has been markedly below average recently).
If Dick Cheyney is the Darth Vader of government, then certainly Rupert Murdoch is the Darth Vader of Industry. I hope he gets spanked hard!
what an ignorant, corporate whoring bagger like you has to say?
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.
that makes it OK in your warped little world?
A founder in charge is usually good for the company. Murdock might not be a nice guy, but he cares about the future of his empire. Closing News of the World made them lose a source of revenue, but he probably had a good reason - it lets every other journalist in his empire know that if they get caught making a scandal, they will lose their jobs, and so will all their co-workers. This will plug leaks (because if you leak, your whole paper will be nuked), and prevent unethical behavior.
I think it was Sun Zi who claimed he could make any squad of new recruits march in perfect formation - if anyone in the squad broke ranks he'd just order the whole squad put to death. In the short term, it's suicidal, but it might pay off in the long term.
In the short term, it's suicidal, but it might pay off in the long term.
You have that precisely backwards. Without short-term survival, long-term viability is significantly decreased.
Murdoch is becoming a liability, not a core asset to the company.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Smuggling drugs makes a lot of money, but investing in people who smuggle drugs does not.
Stock holder revolts rarely work. Stockholders are second class citizens (maybe even 3rd or 4th). If it looks like it might have a chance the board will amend the charter making it even more difficult to revolt. If sued, they will use the assets of the company, in other words the stockholders, to fend the stockholders off.
Scumbags.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Unfortunately, CALPers seems to get into this "politics is more important than fiduciary responsibility to our members" mode these days.
It's a good thing they don't put anonymous cowards in charge of large pension funds. You do realize that if Murdoch isn't managing News Corp properly and is encouraging nepotism and law breaking as corporate policy, then it is only right that they should push hard for a management change. This might not be as political as you think. Go to the CALPERS wikipedia page and read about the "focus list".
BTW, I seem to recall that divesting from South Africa was required by state law, and not volunteered by CALPERS. Wouldn't want reality to get in the way of a tea party legend.
If News Corp were to go bankrupt, CALPERS would not be badly affected. It's not like CALPERS has 90% of its $236 billion in assets in News Corp. It's also not like CALPERS goes around endangering its asset values just for the hell of it.
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Divesting from South Africa was required by state law. I believe that tobacco company divestiture was also required by state law. But Tea Party gots ta think anything dats da state govmint is da Pinko. Frankly I'd rather have CALPERS managing my money than Lehman Brothers. Just imagine who the Tea Party would turn that $236 billion over to, at a cool 2% a year management fee no less.
What they're doing here is not different from standard practice. Every year they make a "focus list" of companies that are in danger of becoming bad investments and they decide whether to seek management changes or divest. This year, News Corp would be on that list for obvious reasons: nepotism and violations of the law combined with an incomprehensible business model. Would you prefer the just sold their shares rather than trying to make management changes?
BTW, News Corp won't be the only company on that list.
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He owns the board (look up the list of members, it's interesting) so in the short term a complete shareholder revolt will do nothing. An example of how ineffective the shareholders actually are without board support is when the shareholders of Australia's Telstra voted against a huge payout to the damaging and not merely useless CEO that was being removed (Sol Trujillo) and the results of the vote were ignored.
In the long term if they are shown to be a bunch on gangsters they will slowly lose influence and eventually somehting positive may happen.
Murdoch has been a master at dominating companies that he has a relatively small ownership of, and then over time aquiring more until his dominance can not be questioned. I was once part of a company that Murdoch aquired 5% of - in under a week after that 3/4 of the staff including the CEO were sacked.
Anon and luzsec and hell even wikileaks don't get this kind of condemnation as this instance of organized hacking has received in the media and on the forums. What's going on guys? Liberal can hack, but conservatives can't?
If you're referring to the phone-hacking scandal...
Anonymous and Lulzsec don't pretend to be news organisations. WikiLeaks doesn't do any hacking.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Smuggling drugs makes a lot of money, but investing in people who smuggle drugs does not.
That doesn't make any sense. Drugs don't autonomously smuggle themselves, so some people are making money out of it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Politically motivated: outing the Murdochs is very likely to be value destructive.
If the Murdochs keep on running News Corp like fucking gangsters, they're going to destroy its value all by themselves.
The whole point is that if you have criminals running companies, eventually they will be found out and the corporation will become worthless. Look at Enron.
So it is financially prudent for pension funds to consider the strategic risk of investing in stocks with potentially zero value. This is quite separate from any moral or political issues.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A founder in charge is usually good for the company.
Not if he's a fucking crook.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
But yeah, more fun just to yell and scream that the evil liberals are trying to silence the voice of conservatives.
They're not? What world do you live in?
The real world, I would imagine, unlike you.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I swear, this place is turning into another Huffington Post. Filled with limp dicked liberals who can't take any criticism.
Always good to hear from the huge swinging dick ACs.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No, this is a good thing. Hopefully people wake up to this new form of democracy. Where if you don't act morally and for the benefit of employees, customers, and the earth then we pull our umpteen millions or billions out of your company now. Government has been dysfunctional for over thirty years in America. William Greider covered this in The Soul of Capitalism where he predicted this very thing. He said that people would start to act through their enormous pension funds to affect change in the world because government simply can't get it done, and it is easier to do this than to change government. Awesome. Get it done.
I can't vote to decide who runs a pension fund, and it is absurd to believe that most of them are interested in morality, employee/customer rights or the fucking environment, unless it earns them a higher rate of return.
Obviously there are exceptions, but in general it is simply untrue that pension funds are run by people I politically agree with.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Anon and lulzsec (no idea why wikileaks is in there) don't target, for example, the phone of a murdered schoolgirl or the families of people killed in terrorist attacks.
No one really cared about the NOTW hacking celebrities' phones, but they crossed a line of vileness.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
you need to remember this is Slashdot so, to see any conservative views, you need to make it a point to read all of the posts that have been scored -1.
NOTE: This alert should be posted on all politically sensitive topics!!!
Yes, because there are no conservatives on slashdot. This site is a teeming hotbed of GODLESS COMMUNISM and MUSLIM TERRORISM.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Drugs don't autonomously smuggle themselves, so some people are making money out of it.
And how do you turn that into an investment? There are several problems you don't recognize here. Let's suppose CALPERS put a billion dollar investment into cocaine smuggling from Columbia. The first problem is getting the smugglers to honor your stake. There are no laws to enforce the normal rules of business for a black market. The second problem is the high risk of asset seizure and imprisonment. If one of many governments catches you, then your assets are gone and somebody, perhaps you, is in jail.
The third problem is simply the short life expectancy of anyone who stays in the drug trade for any length of time.