Strong anti-Murdoch sons vote at News Corporation

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If you assume that Rupert Murdoch cast his own 318 million votes for himself, his sons and the other candidates for election to the News Corporation board, the shareholder vote against his sons (but not him) was pretty strong. But there was surprisingly little support for a dissident shareholder’s proposal to split the CEO and Chairman roles held by Murdoch.


James Murdoch, who has been at the heart of the phone hacking scandal, received the most “no” votes – over 232 million of them. That compared to 433 million “yes” votes. If you subtract the family stake, more than twice as many non-Murdoch shareholders voted against James than voted for him.

Similarly, older brother Lachlan Murdoch received 224 million no votes and 441 million yes. There were also sizeable no vote tallies for five other board nominees, including News Corporation CFO David DeVoe.

Shareholders, however, did not tend to vote against Rupert Murdoch himself. He got only 92 million no votes and 562 million yes. COO Chase Carey also fared well, with 62 million no votes and 602 million yes.

A proposal by Christian Brothers Investment Services to have an independent Chairman of the Board got very little support from other shareholders. Only 1.5 million votes were cast in favor of the idea and 680.5 million against it.