Share count
570Mpeak FY2021
← All companies ← NWS Manual NX → ← NWS Publishing NYT →
NWSA, News Corp
News Corporation is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services to consumers and businesses throughout the world.
News Corp distributes its content and other products and services to consumers and customers across an array of digital platforms including websites, mobile apps, social media, e-book devices and streaming audio platforms, as well as traditional platforms such as print and radio.
News Corp is pursuing multiple strategies to further exploit these opportunities, including leveraging global audience scale and valuable data and sharing technologies and practices across geographies and businesses.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$8.5B
+2.4% YoY · −1% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $8.8B 5-yr avg $8.9B
Revenue $2.2B +8.8% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $121M yr-ago $137M
Net margin 5.5% yr-ago 6.8%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is led by Dow Jones (28%) and News Media (26%), with 2 more segments behind.
- Situation
- Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 41% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 4 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 2.8% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −14% to 17% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 2%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). By owner earnings: roughly 7% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Revenue spreads across 6 segments, the largest Dow Jones at 28%.
Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
- Dow Jones28%$2.3B
- News Media26%$2.2B
- Book Publishing25%$2.1B
- Digital Real Estate Services21%$1.8B
- Other0%$0
- Other0%$0
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $8.3B | $8.1B | $9.0B | $10.1B | $9.0B | $9.4B | $10.4B | $8.0B | $8.3B | $8.5B | $8.8B | RevenueRevenue |
| 33% | 34% | 34% | 32% | 33% | 35% | 35% | 38% | 39% | 39% | 39% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $125M | ($710M) | ($1.2B) | $281M | ($1.2B) | $391M | $675M | $301M | $472M | $1.5B | $1.4B | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 1.5% | −8.7% | −12.8% | 2.8% | −13.9% | 4.2% | 6.5% | 3.8% | 5.7% | 17.2% | 16.3% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $179M | ($738M) | ($1.5B) | $155M | ($1.3B) | $330M | $623M | $149M | $266M | $1.2B | $1.1B | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | — | — | 45% | — | 16% | 8% | 50% | 44% | 19% | 21% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $878M | $494M | $757M | $928M | $780M | $1.2B | $1.4B | $1.1B | $1.1B | $978M | $1.0B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $505M | $449M | $472M | $659M | $644M | $680M | $688M | $415M | $440M | $459M | $477M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $194M | $783M | $1.8B | $114M | $1.4B | $227M | $43M | $528M | $392M | ($661M) | ($610M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $256M | $256M | $364M | $572M | $438M | $390M | $499M | $347M | $357M | $407M | $437M | CapexCapex |
| 3.1% | 3.1% | 4.0% | 5.7% | 4.9% | 4.2% | 4.8% | 4.3% | 4.3% | 4.8% | 5.0% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $622M | $238M | $393M | $356M | $342M | $847M | $855M | $745M | $741M | $571M | $567M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 7.5% | 2.9% | 4.4% | 3.5% | 3.8% | 9.1% | 8.2% | 9.3% | 9.0% | 6.8% | 6.4% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $622M | $238M | $393M | $356M | $342M | $847M | $855M | $745M | $741M | $571M | $567M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 7.5% | 2.9% | 4.4% | 3.5% | 3.8% | 9.1% | 8.2% | 9.3% | 9.0% | 6.8% | 6.4% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $520M | $347M | $77M | $188M | $32M | $886M | $1.5B | $17M | $38M | $96M | $139M | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $147M | $152M | $158M | $161M | $158M | $163M | $175M | $174M | $172M | $185M | $206M | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| — | — | — | — | $0 | $0 | $179M | $243M | $117M | $150M | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 1% | -6% | -10% | 2% | -13% | 4% | 7% | 2% | 3% | 14% | 14% | ROICROIC |
| 2% | -7% | -16% | 2% | -17% | 4% | 8% | 2% | 3% | 13% | 13% | Return on equityROE |
| 0% | −8% | −18% | −0% | −19% | 2% | 5% | −0% | 1% | 11% | 11% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $2.0B | $2.1B | $2.1B | $1.6B | $1.5B | $2.2B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $2.4B | $2.3B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.6B | $1.5B | $1.2B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.6B | $1.8B | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $218M | $208M | $376M | $348M | $348M | $253M | $311M | $311M | $266M | $327M | $303M | InventoryInvent. |
| $217M | $222M | $605M | $411M | $351M | $321M | $411M | $440M | $254M | $335M | $384M | Accounts payablePayables |
| $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.2B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.6B | $1.7B | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $3.9B | $3.8B | $4.4B | $4.0B | $3.5B | $4.5B | $4.1B | $4.1B | $4.4B | $4.8B | $4.6B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $2.4B | $2.5B | $3.3B | $3.3B | $2.7B | $3.2B | $3.5B | $3.2B | $3.1B | $2.6B | $2.7B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 1.6× | 1.6× | 1.3× | 1.2× | 1.3× | 1.4× | 1.2× | 1.3× | 1.4× | 1.8× | 1.7× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $3.7B | $3.8B | $5.2B | $5.1B | $4.0B | $4.7B | $5.2B | $4.3B | $4.3B | $4.4B | $4.5B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $15.5B | $14.6B | $16.3B | $15.7B | $14.3B | $16.8B | $17.2B | $16.9B | $16.7B | $15.5B | $15.5B | Total assetsAssets |
| $372M | $379M | $2.0B | $1.5B | $1.3B | $2.3B | $3.1B | $3.0B | $2.1B | $2.0B | $2.0B | Total debtDebt |
| ($1.6B) | ($1.7B) | ($175M) | ($190M) | ($258M) | $77M | $1.2B | $1.2B | $230M | ($441M) | ($276M) | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| $11.6B | $10.8B | $9.3B | $9.1B | $7.6B | $8.2B | $8.2B | $8.1B | $8.1B | $8.8B | $8.6B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| — | $48M | $218M | $49M | $1.1B | — | — | — | $9M | — | — | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 583M | 581M | 583M | 588M | 588M | 593M | 593M | 579M | 574M | 570M | 562M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $14.24 | $14.00 | $15.49 | $17.14 | $15.32 | $15.77 | $17.53 | $13.84 | $14.39 | $14.83 | $15.67 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $0.31 | $-1.27 | $-2.60 | $0.26 | $-2.16 | $0.56 | $1.05 | $0.26 | $0.46 | $2.07 | $2.02 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $1.07 | $0.41 | $0.67 | $0.61 | $0.58 | $1.43 | $1.44 | $1.29 | $1.29 | $1.00 | $1.01 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $1.07 | $0.41 | $0.67 | $0.61 | $0.58 | $1.43 | $1.44 | $1.29 | $1.29 | $1.00 | $1.01 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.25 | $0.26 | $0.27 | $0.27 | $0.27 | $0.27 | $0.30 | $0.30 | $0.30 | $0.32 | $0.37 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $0.44 | $0.44 | $0.62 | $0.97 | $0.75 | $0.66 | $0.84 | $0.60 | $0.62 | $0.71 | $0.78 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $19.85 | $18.56 | $15.94 | $15.55 | $12.90 | $13.84 | $13.88 | $13.93 | $14.16 | $15.40 | $15.29 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +0.5%/yr | −0.7%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | −0.7%/yr | +11.5%/yr |
| EPS | +23.6%/yr | — |
| Dividends / share | +2.8%/yr | +3.8%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +5.5%/yr | −0.8%/yr |
| Book value / share | −2.8%/yr | +3.6%/yr |
The year, in the company's words
the filing →Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.
- Circulation and subscription+3.4%
“Circulation and subscription revenues increased $9 million, or 2%, due to the positive impact of foreign currency fluctuations as cover price increases, higher content licensing revenues and digital subscriber growth were more than offset by print volume declines.”
✓ figure matches the filed record - Advertising-2.4%
“Advertising Revenues Advertising revenues decreased $9 million, or 2%, during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025 as compared to fiscal 2024, primarily due to lower print advertising revenues of $7 million, or 5%.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
14%low FY2020
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$571Mowner earningsvs.$1.2Bnet incomelow FY2017
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.
FY2016FY2025
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2025 the business reported $1.2B of profit but $571M of owner earnings: $609M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $1.2B | $266M | $149M | $623M | $330M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$459M | +$440M | +$415M | +$688M | +$680M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$661M | +$392M | +$528M | +$43M | +$227M |
| Cash from operations | $978M | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.4B | $1.2B |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$407M | −$357M | −$347M | −$499M | −$390M |
| Owner earnings | $571M | $741M | $745M | $855M | $847M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 7% | 9% | 9% | 8% | 9% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position .
Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- No meaningful interest burdenLittle or no interest expense reported
What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
- Net cashCash $2.4B − debt $2.0B
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $441M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. It also holds $93M in longer-dated marketable securities; counting those, it sits at net cash of $534M. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle10-yr median, range -13%–14%; 14% latest = NOPAT $1.2B ÷ invested capital $8.3BIndustry peers: median -0%
What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 14% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Solid through the cycle10-yr median margin, range 3%–9%; latest $571M = operating cash $978M − maintenance capex $407MIndustry peers: median 2%
What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 7% of revenue this year, a 7% median across 10 years.
- Mostly cash-backedCash from ops $978M ÷ net income $1.2B
What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Returns about halfDividends + buybacks $335M ÷ Owner Earnings $571M
What this means
Of $571M Owner Earnings, $335M (59%) went back to shareholders, $185M dividends, $150M buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.89×MaintainingCapex $407M ÷ depreciation $459M
What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Graham’s defensive tests · 3 of 5 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $8.5B
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity NearCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.84×
What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Conservative debt PassDebt ≤ working capital · $2.0B vs $2.2B WC
What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
- Earnings stability MissA profit every year (10-yr record) · 3 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record PassUninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)
What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Earnings growth —Earnings +33% over the record · —
What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.95/share (latest year $2.11), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $15.67/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Durability & moat, 2016–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 7 of 10
What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs
What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin −7% → 9% (3-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −7% early to 9% lately, median 3% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
- Owner earnings growth +5%/yr
What this means
Owner earnings grew about 5% a year over the record.
- Worst year 2020 · −13.9% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count −0.2%/yr
What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
- Dividend record rising
What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Elevated contestabilityThe product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.
In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.
“Technological advances, including in AI, have also increased the availability of public sources of free or inexpensive information and reduced the cost to process and package this information, which enables additional third parties to compete with the Company's information products and services, often at a lower cost, …”
The product is the kind capable AI most directly contests: when a substitute can be built cheaply, the incumbent's pricing power is the first thing at risk. The record cannot say whether the moat outlasts that; past durability is a starting point, not a promise.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
Current assets$4.6B
- Cash & short-term investments$2.2B
- Receivables$1.8B
- Inventory$303M
- Other current assets$327M
Current liabilities$2.7B
- Accounts payable$384M
- Other current liabilities$2.3B
Current ratio1.70×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.59×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.81×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$1.9Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+8.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 1.7×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$2.2Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Debt incl. operating leases$2.9B$941M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $2.9B (annual-report basis)
Deferred revenue$556Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
Debt maturity
the debt note, SEC EDGAR →Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.
Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.
Due in the next 12 months$25Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$475Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$1.0Bin 2029the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Total scheduled principal$2.0Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$2.2B
One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$571M
Together, against $25M due next year109.7×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $2.7B against the $25M due in the twelve months after the Jun 30, 2025 schedule: 110 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Jun 30, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
Operating leasesFinance leases
Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.
Due in the next 12 months$139Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$1.4Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$978Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$2.0B
Lease obligations (present value)$978M
Total fixed claims on the business$2.9B
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $2.9B, of which the leases are 33%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.
Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Jun 30, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $9.6B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$3.9B · 40%
- Dividends$1.6B · 17%
- Buybacks$689M · 7%
- Retained (debt / cash)$3.4B · 35%
- Returned to owners$2.3B
41% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $1.6B as dividends and $689M as buybacks.
- Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $1.6B and cash and short-term investments rose $339M.
- Average price paid for buybacks$20.75
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 33M shares were bought for $689M, about $20.75 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $17.11 (2023) to $28.30 (2025); its heaviest year, 2023, paid $17.11 ($243M).
- Net change in share count−3.6%
The diluted count fell from 583M to 562M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend record$0.32/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 3% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
Goodwill & intangibles$6.3B41% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity50%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$3.7Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $3.9B of capital spent building
$1.4B written down across 5 years (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2024): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 38% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Thomson | $23.1M | $58.0M | $847M |
| 2022 | Mr. Thomson | $19.7M | $4.6M | $855M |
| 2023 | Mr. Thomson | $19.3M | $25.6M | $745M |
| 2024 | Mr. Thomson | $20.3M | $32.2M | $741M |
| 2025 | Mr. Thomson | $20.6M | $24.4M | $571M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio221:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why News Corp is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.
3 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.
- Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$372M → $2.0B
Debt rose from $372M to $2.0B while owner earnings went from about $418M to $686M — about 0.9 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 2.9 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
- Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?17% → 24% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $1.4B to $2.1B while revenue grew 6%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (17% of revenue then, 24% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.
- Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?8 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 8 of the last 10 years, $4.3B in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.
And these came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did the share count rise anyway?
Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Publishing
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NWSANews Corp | $8.5B | — | 3.3% | 2% | 7% |
| CMPRCimpress plc Ordinary Shares (Ireland) | $3.4B | 49% | 4.6% | 8% | 7% |
| TDAYUSA TODAY Co. Inc. | $2.3B | 40% | 2.9% | -2% | 2% |
| MHMcGraw Hill Inc. | $2.1B | — | 13.2% | 7% | 12% |
| WBTNWEBTOON Entertainment Inc. | $1.4B | 24% | -6.0% | -8% | 0% |
| DJCODaily Journal Corp. (S.C.) | $88M | — | 0.6% | -0% | 1% |
| Group median | — | — | 3.1% | 1% | 5% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what News Corp has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, News Corp earns about $603M on its 7.1% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 6.8% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
Base
—
The assumptions
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−6%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+5%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+5%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—
P/B—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $567M on 560M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net cash $276M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "News Corp (NWSA), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/NWSA, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← NWS its page in the Manual NX →
Industry order: ← NWS the Publishing chapter NYT →