How rich is Rupert Murdoch?

Rupert Murdoch is one of the world's richest men. With his British company News International under intense scrutiny, we profile the wealth of the media mogul...

In March, Rupert Murdoch, 80, the chairman and CEO of News Corporation, and now a US citizen, was displaced from the top slot in the Business Review Weekly’s Executive Rich List of Australia’s top 200 executives.

But it wasn't the 80-year-old's shrinking wealth to blame but rising iron ore prices, which lifted the wealth of metals baron Andrew Forrest by almost a third to AU$6.2 billion.

Not short of a bob or two: Murdoch's wealth was valued at £4.7 billion by Forbes in March

Not short of a bob or two: Murdoch's wealth was valued at £4.7 billion by Forbes in March

Murdoch came in second, with his shareholding in the media giant worth AU$5.6 billion (£3.7 billion).

The list ranks the 200 richest executive directors and managers of Australia’s largest publicly listed companies by the value of the ordinary shares they own in the companies they work for.

 

Forbes, meanwhile, currently lists Murdoch’s wealth, valued in March, at US$7.6 billion (£4.7 billion), placing him 112th in the list of the world's richest billionaires.

The business magazine also listed him at number 38 in the Forbes 400 Richest People in America, and at number 13 in its list of the world’s most powerful people. BBC news reports have estimated his wealth at $6.3 billion (£3.9 billion).

Determined: Even at 80, Murdoch shows no signs of winding down

Determined: Even at 80, Murdoch shows no signs of winding down

Being knocked off the top spot in his homeland is the least of Murdoch’s problems now, of course. With damaging allegations emerging daily in what has been tagged ‘Britain’s Watergate’, the media across the globe, including Murdoch’s own titles, are abuzz with quite how much damage is being done to News Corp. And while money is powerful, it cannot buy back reputations or shareholder confidence.

Damage that cannot be reversed by wealth include the closure of the News of the World, the BSkyB bid being withdrawn, the fracturing of NewsCorp’s previously close relationship with British politicians, and massive public hostility. NewsCorp lost about $5 billion of market cap in the space of a week as the scandal hit fever pitch.

Murdoch has never been a quitter, and damage limitation and the protection of his senior executives is the order of the day as he fights to retain his - and his family’s - grip on the media empire he created.

Initial action announced this week included a $5billion share buy-back - a big extension of an existing $1.8billion share buying programme - aimed at supporting the company's share price.

Born 11 March 1931 in Melbourne, Australia, Keith Rupert Murdoch was educated at Oxford and returned home to take charge of the family's finances in the early 1950s. Murdoch had a difficult releationship with his father, an Australian newspaper baron.

The younger Murdoch returned to Australia after his father's death in 1952 and expected to inherit substantial wealth. Instead he received control of a single newspaper - the Adelaide News.

But the 22-year-old Murdoch instantly demonstrated his commitment to aggressive expansion. Circulation increased and he began buying other newspapers, including Sydney's Daily Mail, and in 1964 he launched Australia's first national paper, The Australian. From then on, the growth of his media empire was rapid.

In 1969, he fought off a £34million bid from the now disgraced Robert Maxwell to buy News of the World. In 1976, he bought the American tabloid, The New York Post.

But it was acquiring Times Newspapers in 1981 that forced the British establishment to take him seriously and won him respect, if not admiration.

Family business: Murdoch with his third wife, Wendi Deng. The couple have two young children

Family business: Murdoch with his third wife, Wendi Deng. The couple have two young children

From that moment, his status as a media and to some extent political powerbroker was assured.

In the depths of the early 1990s recession and faced with a colossal $8billion, the group was stretched and very nearly crashed. It didn't help that Sky television, now a huge profit churner, was also having a slow start.

Murdoch was forced to sell some US magazines so he could make debt repayments. But by the late 1990s, he had bounced back, which earned him his formidable reputation for debt management.

He is now at the helm of a media empire that spans the UK, US, Asia, Australia and Latin America, and which includes Fox Broadcasting Company, publisher Harper Collins, and the Wall Street Journal.

In the 2000s he became a leading investor in satellite TV and music, enhancing his film interests – box office phenomenon Avatar was made by 20th Century Fox, of which Murdoch gained full ownership in 1985.

And here’s a snapshot of the basic salary he brings home in a year: while CEO of News Corp. in 2008, Murdoch made a total of $30,053,157, which included a base salary of $8,100,000, a cash bonus of $17,500,000, stocks granted of $4,049,988, and no options.

Owner: Rupert Murdoch is at the helm of a media empire of more than 100 newspapers, including The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times

Owner: Rupert Murdoch is at the helm of a media empire of more than 100 newspapers, including The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times

Murdoch’s dogged pursuit of his international business interests seems to have left him time for only one hobby – his decades-long interest in politics and influencing politics, both left and right (he backed Thatcher and Obama).

He has been married three times (this third wife is Wendi Deng) and he has six children: Prudence, from his first marriage, to Patricia; three by his second wife, Anna, who he divorced in 1999; and two young children with his current wife.

Whatever the damage to brand Murdoch and brand NewsCorp from the phone hacking brand, the man who controls more than 100 newspapers and dozens of TV channels around the world will remain formidably wealthy.

The phone hacking scandal may keep him awake at night, but he may well be equally concerned at the haemorrhaging of newspaper sales to online content.

Analysts suggest that was why he was so committed to a full takeover of BSkyB, buying the remaining 61% of shares that he doesn't own.

The company generates enormous amounts of cash and is well placed to benefit as households spend more on integrated entertainment.

The jury is out as to whether the paywall around The Times and The Sunday Times is working.

But Murdoch remains one of the few newspaper proprietors who is passionate enough about print to lead an industry effort to give it a viable future.

And even at 80, he retains the energy and determination to fight back, and even to leave some scars on his opponents.

As Murdoch himself has said: ‘I'm a catalyst for change.  You can't be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place.’

Anyone who is looking forward to Mudroch's retirement will be disappointed.

Hugh Lunn, an Australian author and journalist, told Al-Jazeera ahead of his 80th birthday. ‘Rupert, far from winding down... he's winding up. He is getting bigger – it shows you what you can still do even when you're in your eighties.’

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