News Corp, the media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch, plans to name Dow Jones Editor-in- Chief Robert Thomson as chief executive officer of its proposed publishing spinoff, a person familiar with the decision said.
The timing of the announcement hasn’t been set yet, though it could come as early as next week, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. Thomson also serves as managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, the largest US newspaper. Gerald Baker, Thomson’s deputy, will replace him in that role, the person said yesterday.
News Corp, bowing to pressure from shareholders, agreed in June to split into two publicly traded entities. The publishing spinoff will include the Journal and other newspapers in the US, UK and Australia, as well as the HarperCollins book division, education and marketing assets. News Corp acquired the Journal as part of its purchase of Dow Jones in 2007.
The breakup, slated for mid-2013, will let the existing company focus on News Corp.’s faster-growing entertainment businesses, including its Fox television and film operations. Murdoch will be chairman of both companies and CEO of the entertainment side.
As head of the spinoff, Thomson would have to reinvigorate a business suffering from shrinking profit and a scandal at its UK newspapers. Still, the business will have a clean balance sheet, with no debt and “very large reserves of cash,” Murdoch said when the plan was proposed in June.
News Corp. shares fell 0.3 per cent to $24.64 on November 30, the most recent trading day. The stock has climbed 38 per cent this year.
Murdoch signaled at the time that he would focus on internal candidates for the publishing CEO job.
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News Corp. has “world-class executives we’re looking at,” he said in an interview.
Murdoch, 81, hired Thomson, a fellow Australian, to run the Journal in 2007 and appointed him head of all of Dow Jones the following year. Thomson, 51, had served as editor the Times of London, where he bolstered internet readership. Before that, he was editor of the US edition of the Financial Times.
The latest move would put the publishing spinoff in the hands of a career journalist, rather than someone with CEO experience. It also would elevate Thomson above Dow Jones CEO Lex Fenwick, who was hired from Bloomberg LP earlier this year. Bloomberg, the owner of Bloomberg News, competes with Dow Jones in providing financial news and services.
Thomson would have to cofront a lingering scandal in the UK News Corp closed its News of the World newspaper in July 2011 in response to public anger over revelations that journalists accessed messages on a murdered schoolgirl’s mobile phone nearly a decade earlier.
The investigation spawned parallel probes of computer hacking and bribery and led to the arrests of more than 80 people, including the unit’s former head of security and its top lawyer.