Investors Await News Corp. Meeting
News Corp. executives will try to use an important board meeting and full-year earnings this week to steer attention away from the scandal at the media giant’s U.K. newspapers unit and refocus investors on the company’s core operations, people familiar with the matter said.
On Tuesday, News Corp.’s 16-member board will meet in person for the first time since the long-simmering scandal over voice-mail interceptions in the U.K. flared last month with news that a teen murder victim’s phone was hacked.
Then, on Wednesday, the company will deliver its fiscal year-end results, which it hopes will defuse pressure relating to the scandal, people familiar with the matter say. In its fourth quarter, News Corp. (which also owns AllThingsD) sold Myspace, the struggling social network, and analysts expect the cable network and television businesses performed well.
After trying to stem the initial scandal fallout with moves including closing the News of the World tabloid, abandoning a more than $12 billion deal to buy the rest of British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC and accepting the resignations of two senior executives, the company isn’t likely to announce any major deals or management changes soon, according to people familiar with the matter.
