Newspaper empire ‘tidied up’

Press, 9 August 1980, Page 19

Newspaper empire ‘tidied up’

PA London The Australian newspaper magnate, Mr Rupert Murdoch’s plan to “tidy up” his newspaper empire had been endorsed by his British shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting in London, “The Times” reported. The report said that at Friday’s meeting the shareholders gave the go-ahead for the restructuring .of News International’s (NI) capital,

even though that meant disenfranchising their shares. But in return, the shareholders get higher dividends and this proved a “sufficient lure” for other institutional holders to ignore the Electricity Council Pension Funds’ opposition to the changes, it added. The Electricity Council pension funds had little support at the meeting, “The Times” noted. The report said that NI needs 75 per cent of the votes . cast to get the changes through. “The Times” report said that at the meeting 38 per cent of the shareholders voted and 90 per cent of the votes cast were for the new arrangement. The parent group and now sole enfranchised owner of NI. the Australian group News Corporation (NC) had agreed to abstain, it pointed .out.

The changes for the new ■rangement were effective

immediately, the report added.

“The Times” said that NC now owned all of the voting shares of NI. All other “old” NI shareholders, it added, now had special dividend shares that get the same dividends that were paid by the larger parent company and it would be NI that made the payment.

But, continued the report, if NI was ever unable to meet that commitment, NC had to take on the liability and pay up. “The Times” report said that these special dividend shares now had no voting rights, except in special circumstances and a trust deed was being drawn up to cover “every possible contingency,” ito protect the special i dividend shareholders’ interests.

The new shares were scheduled to start trading on the London Stock Market yesterday.. .