Murdoch, 91, owns News Corp and Fox Corp through a family trust based in Reno, Nevada, which owns roughly 40% of each company's voting stock.
Digital Desk: Billionaire The New York Times reported on Wednesday
that Rupert Murdoch and actress Jerry Hall are divorcing, citing two people
familiar with the situation.
In March 2016, Murdoch married Hall in a low-key ceremony in
central London. The Fox Corp (FOXA.O) chairman and his former supermodel wife
were frequent tabloid fodder, with stories about their marriage at Spencer
House and the festivities surrounding the elder Murdoch's 90th birthday
celebration last year at Tavern on the Green in New York City.
According to the report,
Murdoch's fourth divorce is unlikely to change the ownership structure of
companies in which he has stakes, including Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox
News Channel, and News Corp (NWSA.O), the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch, 91, owns News Corp and Fox Corp through a family trust
based in Reno, Nevada, which owns roughly 40% of each company's voting stock.
Murdoch's spokesperson,
Bryce Tom, declined to comment. A representative for Hall, 65, did not respond
immediately to a request for comment. People close to Murdoch were
"surprised" to hear of the divorce, which had allowed Lachlan
Murdoch, Rupert's oldest son, to take on a more prominent role running
properties such as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal in the United States.
"They are very sweet together, in a little couple
bubble," a friend of the couple told the Guardian before the wedding. They
already act like a married couple, talking over each other and holding hands.
"She puts her feet up on his legs; they argue like any
married couple." She despises Trump, he understands Trump, and it's been
that way since the beginning."
According to the
newspaper, the feud with Hall could "reverberate throughout [Murdoch's]
business empire, which maintains powerful sway in America and abroad through
its right-leaning news brands such as the Sun in Britain and Sky News in
Australia."
Forbes estimates the
billionaire's net worth at $17.7 billion. He built a sprawling media empire
with assets all over the world. He sold the Fox film and television studios, as
well as other entertainment assets, to Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) for $71.3 billion
in March 2019.
Murdoch previously married entrepreneur Wendi Deng, whom he
divorced after 14 years of marriage in 2014. They have two children. In 1999,
he divorced his second wife, Scottish journalist Anna Murdoch Mann, with whom
he had three children. In 1966, he divorced his first wife, Patricia Booker, a
former flight attendant with whom he had a daughter.
