Murdoch is asset stripping his corporate merger with Wendi and moving on to more mergers and aquisitions.
Quote:Rupert Murdoch files for divorce from Wendi Deng
News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from Wendi Deng because their marriage has "irretrievably broken down", his spokesman says.
The divorce papers were filed at the New York State Supreme Court.
The couple, married in 1999 aboard a private yacht in New York, have two daughters together, Grace and Chloe.
In 2011, Ms Deng famously leapt to her husband's defence to slap a protester who threw a pie at him as British MPs quizzed him over phone-hacking.
Mr Murdoch, 82, met his Chinese-born third wife in 1997 at a cocktail party in Hong Kong. They were married two years later, weeks after his second divorce.
Pre-nup Ms Deng, 44, is 38 years younger than the Australian-born media mogul, who is said by Forbes to be worth $9.4bn (£6bn).
The moment Rupert Murdoch was attacked (first broadcast 2011)
"I can confirm for the record that Rupert filed in New York State Supreme Court this morning for divorce," Murdoch spokesman Steven Rubenstein told AFP news agency on Thursday.
The BBC's Robert Peston says the couple had a pre-nuptial agreement and have held shares in trust for their children.
So our business editor believes the divorce is not likely to lessen the magnate's grip on his media empire.
Mr Murdoch, now a US citizen, reportedly paid $1.7bn in his divorce settlement from his last wife.
Ms Deng, said to be the daughter of a factory director, was born in 1968 and grew up in the eastern Chinese city of Xuzhou before leaving for the US at 19 to study.
She worked in a Chinese restaurant in California before going on to graduate from Yale University in 1996.
Ms Deng was later employed by Star TV, News Corp's Asian satellite-television operation in Hong Kong, where she met Mr Murdoch during one of his visits.
The divorce filing comes two days before News Corp is to be split into two companies, one for its entertainment assets and the other for its publishing business. Mr Murdoch is to be chairman of both firms.
His global media portfolio includes the Wall Street Journal, television channels such as Fox News and Sky, and the 20th Century Fox movie studio.
Two years ago, his UK newspaper division became embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal, which led Mr Murdoch to close one of the titles, the News of the World.
In July 2011, Ms Deng jumped from her seat during a UK parliamentary hearing to slap a prankster who tried to shove a shaving-cream pie into Mr Murdoch's face.
:pointlaugh:
Quote:Murdoch is asset stripping his corporate merger with Wendi and moving on to more mergers and acquisitions.
:rofl:
I wonder if part of the settlement will be that she can't write a book about 'Gramps'....
From
Guido:
Quote:Blair Denies Wendi Deng Affair Rumour
The Hollywood Reporter were given a very carefully worded response when they called up Blair's office this morning:"If you are asking if they are having an affair, the answer is no."
People have, surely somewhat unfairly, remarked on the use of the present tense…
Wasn't Tony Godfather to the Murdoch spawn from this corporate merger?
And isn't Tony a pretty straight sort of guy?
How Divorce Could Complicate Rupert Murdoch's Business Empire
by Peter Jukes Jun 14, 2013 11:54 AM EDT
Personal matters aside, the mogul's divorce could have a huge impact on his media empire. Peter Jukes on the succession drama brewing at News Corp.
It was not the split everyone expected.
Two weeks before Rupert Murdoch was due to split the world's second-largest media conglomerate into two new companies (21st Century Fox and a period-free News Corp), the announcement on Thursday that he was filing for divorce from his third wife, Wendi Deng, came as a shock.
There were reports that the 12-year marriage was on the rocks two years ago,according to the former Financial Times chief media correspondent Ben Fenton, but these were denied at the time and overwhelmed by the phone-hacking scandal that erupted weeks later. Sources close to Deng explained to The New York Times a year ago that the spouses were effectively leading "separate lives," but that was after she so deftly defended her husband in Parliament from a foam-pie-throwing protestor as he answered questions from MPs about the phone-hacking scandal that had just shuttered his bestselling Sunday tabloid, News of the World.
Whatever the personal background, it's unlikely that the timing of the announcement is purely driven by emotion. Murdoch, who has always evinced a dislike of royalty, has nevertheless designed the world's second-biggest media conglomerate as a dynastic empire. Since the two new companies will continue to be controlled by a family trust in which Murdoch's six children have an interest, questions of marriage and succession remain as charged and difficult for Murdoch as a season of Game of Thrones.
Phone-hacking allegations were followed by more than 100 arrests, mainly of staff and informants for his bestselling daily Sun newspaper. This coming September, Murdoch's close aide and protégé Rebekah Brooks and other senior newspaper executives face a very public and potentially revelatory trial for charges including phone hacking, payments to public officials, and alleged destruction of evidence. The U.S. Department of Justice is in the final stages of what (from stock write down)could be the biggest corporate fine since the Michael Milken and Drexel Burnham scandal.
It's hard not to see the divorce announcement as part of a wider strategy. In 1998, when Murdoch announced his divorce from his second wife, Anna, after 31 years of marriage, no reason was given for the breakdown. A year later in June 1999, a few months before his marriage to Wendi Deng, Murdoch sold $150 million of stock and settled his divorce with Anna for $110 million in cash plus other assets. In the last two years, according to The Wall Street Journal, Murdoch has sold all his nonvoting stock and raised over $140 million in cash.
Deng and Murdoch's prenuptial agreement was ratified by Jacqueline Silverman, head of the matrimonial division of the New York Supreme Court. Subsequent written agreements followed the birth of their two children, Chloe and Grace, in October 2002 and June 2004. (Though she was an employee of News Corp.'s subsidiary Star TV in Hong Kong when she met Murdoch, Deng has never sat on the company's board unlike his previous wife.)
A battle of the airwaves could be about to commence.
As the proprietor of tabloid titles such as News of the World and the New York Post, Murdoch has made as his stock in trade the personal scandals of celebrities, royals, businessmen, and politicians, so he understands better than most the potential pitfalls ahead.
A year after his marriage to Deng, in November 2000, The Wall Street Journalpublished a 4,000-word front-page article that probed into her past and former relationships. Murdoch was reported to be furious. After a long campaign exploiting divisions in the Bancroft family. who then owned the Journal's parent company, Murdoch acquired the publisher for $5 billion in 2007. For six years the Deng article was buried in the archivesuntil Thursday, when it was linked to a report of the imminent divorce.
So a battle of the airwaves could be about to commence during the tough negotiations over a settlement. Already the rumor mills and PR spin machines seem to be in operation. As reported by Robert Peston, the BBC's financial correspondent, and close to senior News Corp. executives, "the undisclosed reasons for Murdoch divorcing Deng are jaw-dropping."
Murdoch's biographer Michael Wolff suggests that the older children from his two previous marriages never trusted Deng so the split may actually help his plan to pass on control of parts of his company to the next generation. Both Lachlan and James Murdoch have spent time in New York being groomed for the succession. And by virtue of the company's $650 million acquisition of her media company, Shine Entertainment, Elisabeth also has a right to sit on the board, which she has yet to exert.
Deng was also more liberal in her tastes than the 82-year-old Australian. She includes in her circle celebrities like Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, who are godfather to Grace and Chloe, along with Tony Blair. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a spokesman for the former prime minister flatly denies rumors that Deng and the former prime minister had any kind of inappropriate friendship. ("If you are asking if they are having an affair, the answer is no.")
While celebrities and politicians generally have to suffer the media spotlight, those who control it often know where the off switch is and can escape the glare of public attention in their private lives. But given the horrendous two years Murdoch has suffered, and the depletion of much of his politicalif not his financialcapital, the privacy he would normally be accorded may be more difficult to enforce this time around.
As the foremost media player of his generation, it would be foolish to think the 82-year-old doesn't have many more moves left to play. But this could be more of drawn-out endgame for Murdoch.
Peter Jukes is an author based in London. His second nonfiction book, Fall of the House of Murdoch, which puts the current scandal against the half-century rise of News Corp., was published by Unbound earlier this year.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...rones.html
Magda Hassan Wrote:
Am also told that undisclosed reasons for Murdoch divorcing Deng are jaw-dropping - & hate myself for wanting to know what they are
Rumours are going around that Wendy had an affair with a well-known public figure
Sandy Sherbrook Wrote:Magda Hassan Wrote:
Am also told that undisclosed reasons for Murdoch divorcing Deng are jaw-dropping - & hate myself for wanting to know what they are
Rumours are going around that Wendy had an affair with a well-known public figure
Puts Murdoch's stable of gossip sheets in quite a difficult position, no?!:kraka: A different kind of 'blowback'
Sandy Sherbrook Wrote:Magda Hassan Wrote:
Am also told that undisclosed reasons for Murdoch divorcing Deng are jaw-dropping - & hate myself for wanting to know what they are
Rumours are going around that Wendy had an affair with a well-known public figure
I wonder if he hacked her phone and learned something he didn't want to know? hahaha.
![[Image: Robert_Peston_CF076892.flat_normal.jpg]](https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/1770926438/Robert_Peston_CF076892.flat_normal.jpg)