Beyond the ticker News Corporation ASX: NWS Financials June 2020 Market Cap 12.23B Revenue 1.92B Net Income -397M Diluted EPS -0.68 Dividend Yield - P/E ratio - Introduction 1.0 Focus Point - ALL News Corp has 3.95 B in goodwill on their balance sheet which accounts for 27.7% of their total assets. The balance sheet will come under pressure when it comes time to write down the goodwill. A positive focus point from New Corp is their streaming services, specifically Kayo. The streaming services provide a solid future stream of revenue. 2.0 Financial Statement Breakdown 2.1 Majority shareholders Name Number of shares Percentage of shares Rowe Price Associates, Inc. (Investment 65,749,732 16.9% Management) The Vanguard Group, Inc. 52,924,384 13.6% Independent Franchise Partners LLP 31,361,390 8.07% Yacktman Asset Management LP 21,058,734 5.42% Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC 20,559,584 5.29% SSgA Funds Management, Inc. 19,574,176 5.03% Southeastern Asset Management, Inc. 16,054,798 4.13% Dodge & Cox 13,740,109 3.53% Aristotle Capital Management LLC 11,050,110 2.84% Burgundy Asset Management Ltd. 10,598,948 2.73% 2.2 Directors and Executives - Andrew K. Rupert Murdoch - Executive Chairman Mr Rupert Murdoch is a well known Australian Media investor. He has a wealth of 17.6 billion ​ from 21st Century Fox and News Corporation, he has been with and grown News Corp since it was a small single newspaper in Adelaide, Australia. Lachlan K. Murdoch - Co-Chairman Mr Lachlan Murdoch, as the name suggests is the son of Rupert, he is currently the CEO of Fox corporation and Co-Chairman of News Corporation. He has a degree from Princeton University with a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy. Robert J. Thomson - Chief Executive Office Mr Robert Thomson was appointed CEO in 2013, prior to this he was the editor in chief for Dow Jones & Company, he was also the managing director for The Wall Street Journal. He has extensive experience working in Australia, England and the USA for a number of Major media and newspapers groups.. Ana Paula Pessoa - Director Ms Paula Pessoa is a Stanford University graduate and is currently a partner or director of 7 businesses, including Credit Suisse, Suzano, Kunimi and VINCI. She has a wealth of experience in multiple industries at the forefront of future growth and technological change. Masroor Siddiqui - Director Mr Masroor Siddiqui, is a managing partner of Naya Management LLP and is a Partner in the Children's investment fund management. He graduated from Yale University with a Masters degree in Management and a Bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania. He has experience in the big financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Jefferies James R. Murdoch - Director Mr James Murdoch, as the name suggests again is the son of Rupert Murdoch. He attended Havard university where he studied film (he did not complete his studies). He has held positions as CEO of 21st Century Fox, Chairman and CEO Europe and Asia of News corporations before a restructure. Joel I. Klein - Director Mr Klein started with News Corporations at the end of 2010. He is a American Lawyer attending ​ both Columbia University completing his Bachelor of Arts and Harvard Law school. He has held prestigious positions such as the United states assistant attorney general for the Antitrust division, and was the Chancellor of New York city schools. Peter L. Barnes - Director Mr Barnes, previously a Director and Chairman of the board of Metcash Limited and Board member of 21st Century Fox. Peter also worked at Philip Morris International in a number of senior positions throughout the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia. ​ Kelly Ayotte - Director Ms Kelly Ayotto was elected to the board in 2017, prior to this, she served in the public system, as Attorney General of the State of New Hampshire, She graduated from Pennsylvania State ​ University and Villanova University School of Law. Kelly, became the first and only woman to serve as New Hampshire’s Attorney General. José María Aznar - Director Mr José Aznar was appointed to the board in 2006, He was the Prime Minister of Spain from ​ ​ 1996 to 2004, and was the leader of the opposition from 1989 to 1996. Jose graduated from Complutense University of Madrid in Law. Jose is also on the advisory board of Centaurus Capital Hedge fund in the UK. Natalie Bancroft - Director Ms Natalie Bancroft was appointed to the board at the age of 27, is a member of the Bancroft Family, who formerly owned Dow Jones & Company (now owned by News Corporation) She studied Journalism from the Institut de Ribaupierre. Board Rating - 81/90 The board is made up with an enormous amount of experience and leadership. They have a lot of skin in the game with the Murdoch family. The diversity of age is a little low due to the amount of experience the board has obtained in their separate ventures. 3.0 Operations / Revenue Streams The majority of News Corps Revenue is split into four main operations beginning with the biggest: News and Information, Subscription Video Services, Books Publishing and Digital Real Estate Services. News Corps News and Info Services was aided last financial year posting a 20% increase in digital paid subscribers. The specific segment EBITDA also saw an increase of $10m in the past quarter due to a lower loss in the New York Post. Wall Street Journal also saw an average digital daily subscriber count reach over 2 million compared to sub 1.8 million in the prior year. Additionally, the Sunday Times total digital subscribers increased from 286,000 to 345,000 furthermore showing the strength of News Corps News and Information Services. The Subscription video service saw a decrease of 14% last quarter and was offset by subscriber growth at Kayo. This segment is composed of video subscription services such as kayo and Foxtel. The segment EBITDA in the quarter decreased $30 million compared with last year due to the effects of COVID-19 and the suspension of sporting events which resulted in less licencing fees. Foreign currency fluctuations play a big part in book publishing and accounted for a $9 million decline in the past quarter compared to the previous year. However, online sales increased 3% mainly due to audiobooks which composed 23% of the revenues in this sector for the quarter. The adjusted EBITDA increased 6% for this segment. Lastly the Digital Real Estate Services also declined due to changes in foreign currency fluctuations along with COVID-19. News Corps Digital Real Estate Services are composed of REA Group and Move which both experienced decreases of 5% and 2% respectively primarily due to changes in foreign currency fluctuations. Move was hard hit by COVID-19 specifically due to the customer relief measures. Revenues in the quarter declined 4% which equated to $11 million compared to the prior year. 4.0 Economic Activity The focus for this economic activity section is what we consider the growth and future of news corp. We are focusing on Kayo, their sports subscription service and REA Group, their digital Real Estate Service. Kayo delivered a disappointing result sliding 32,000 paying subscribers between November 5 and February 5. This brings the number of paying subscribers to 370,000 all paying $25 a month. Kayo had better results in the March quarter with 444,000 subscribers. News corp holds a 61.6% stake in REA group. REA group owns realestate.com, flatmates.com.au and many more property sites. The average monthly visits to realestate.com was 76.8 million, they also have the most time spent on their app, nearly 4.7 times greater than any other property app in Australia. 5.0 Exposures The biggest exposure News Corp faces is the global shift away from traditional media. How News Corp navigates this unavoidable transition will make or break the company. Another exposure we have highlighted is on News Corps balance sheet. Of their 14.26 B of total assets 3.95 B of that is goodwill. Goodwill is intangible assets including newspaper mastheads, distribution networks, publishing imprints, radio broadcast licenses, trademarks and trade names, publishing rights and customer relationships. We see these intangible assets as high risk if the company goes under. 6.0 Technical Analysis In 2019-2020, News Corp shareholders saw a capital growth of 30% without factoring in dividend payments. Shareholders of News Corp shares experienced relatively predictable price action due to the continuation of the upwards trend which was kept intact by the ascending trendline (Point C). Like most of the market, COVID-19 had a devastating effect on News Corp, pullingthe share price under $14 to a low of $13.10, which had not been seen in over 10 years. The impact of COVID-19 resulted in a total decline of 42.15% to News Corps’ share price but has since rallied 60% from the lows previously stated. Although FOMO may be kicking in for some novice investors, News Corp has a few technical hurdles that will be explained further beneath. A. Red Line: Represents the long-term resistance which has been established due to failure of ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ the three consecutive attempts to break over the $22.50 price area. B. Green Line: Illustrates all support lines and shows the price action is less likely to trend ​ ​ ​ below the line. C. ​Point C illustrates the ascending trendline that was tested on two occasions before finally ​ th failing on Feb 24 ,​ 2020 which resulted in the conclusion of the uptrend.