News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, 82, has filed for divorce from his third wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch, 44.
“By most accounts the couple had grown apart and spent long stretches away from each other,”
the
New York Times
reported.
The
Times
article said the divorce “could prove … highly contentious.”
The announcement was made the same week that News Corp. shareholders approved a plan to split the media empire into two companies: one holding newspaper assets, which will retain the News Corp. name, and the other, to be called 21st Century Fox, holding film and TV assets.
The
Wall Street Journal
— a News Corp. publication —
noted that
the split “is unlikely to jeopardize the Murdoch family’s control of News Corp.” Most of the family’s voting stock, a block of 38.4%, is held through the Murdoch Family Trust, the
Journal
article said. All of Murdoch’s six children are trust beneficiaries.
However, only his children from his first two marriages have the right to appoint trustees for the trust, which means they will control the stock upon Murdoch’s death, the Journal report noted. Wendi Deng Murdoch is not a trust beneficiary.
Murdoch personally holds another 1% of voting stock through a separate trust, according to the
Journal
report.
Grace and Chloe, Murdoch’s two children from his marriage to Wendi Deng Murdoch, have an interest in a block of non-voting shares worth $269 million that are held in a trust known as the GCM Trust, the
Journal
report said.
The
Journal
article said Murdoch’s elder children — Prudence, a daughter from his first marriage; and Elisabeth, Lachlan and James, the children from his marriage to his second wife, Anna — control most of the family’s voting stake in News Corp. because of Murdoch’s 1998 divorce settlement with Anna.
The
Times
article noted that “a marital battle erupted” between Rupert and Wendi Murdoch in 2006, after Rupert Murdoch told TV interviewer Charlie Rose that Grace and Chloe would not have the same voting rights as the older children. “That was the first time Mrs. Murdoch had heard about the arrangement,” the
Times
article said.
Citing anonymous sources close to the family, the
Times
report said that dispute might be “a sign that future battles could ensue” over the division of Murdoch’s net worth. Rupert and Wendi Murdoch have a prenuptial agreement dating from 1999, according to the
Journal.
(Sources:
New York Times,
June 13, 2013;
Wall Street Journal,
June 14, 2013.)
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