Rupert Murdoch, wife reach divorce deal in NYC
(20 Nov 2013) Media baron Rupert Murdoch and wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch, have reached a divorce deal. The two appeared in a New York City court on Wednesday to tell a judge they had arrived at a settlement to end their 14-year marriage. The terms were not disclosed in court. It was the third marriage for 82-year-old Murdoch, who runs an entertainment and media empire. Murdoch split his firm News Corp. earlier this year into two companies: the journalism and publishing portion, still called News Corp., and the more profitable film and TV unit, 21st Century Fox. Both are publicly traded and based in New York. The divorce won't affect control of the companies or the succession plan for them. Rupert Murdoch controls them through a family trust that benefits his four children from previous marriages - Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James. The latter three have had active roles in the companies. Upon Rupert Murdoch's death, all four will have an equal say in what happens to the roughly 38 percent voting stock the trust holds in both companies. He and Wendi Deng Murdoch, 44, have two school-age daughters, Grace and Chloe. They are beneficiaries of 8.7 million non-voting shares being held in a separate trust. Wendi Deng Murdoch is not a shareholder, according to the person familiar with the situation. Born in China, Wendi Deng Murdoch is a Yale graduate who worked as a junior executive at News Corp.'s subsidiary Star TV in Hong Kong, where she met her future husband at a 1997 cocktail party. She left Star TV before marrying the media mogul in 1999 aboard Murdoch's private yacht, in New York. She produced the 2011 movie "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," released by News Corp.'s Fox Searchlight. Wendi Deng Murdoch literally leaped into the spotlight when she jumped up to smack a protester who was throwing a cream pie at her husband during a 2011 British parliamentary hearing into phone hacking by News Corp. newspapers. The couple had residences in New York, London, Beijing and elsewhere that were the subject of negotiations in their divorce Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
