Shares in News Corp shares plummeting, but nowhere more so than on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), where News Corp shares are taking a daily beating as the phone hacking scandal continues to damage the company's image.
On Monday Morning trading, the Australian Stock Exchange is listing news Corp shares down 5.69% per cent @ A$13.93, on top of the shares having lost more than 11% last week. (UPDATE: shares were down more than 7% throughout the day, but ended down 4.1%)
And news from Down Under is that the event is effecting another News Corp acquisition deal in the works, the $2+ billion deal for Foxtel to take over it's rival, Austar, a pay-tv firm.
News Corp shares slide as hacking scandal deepens
News Corp's (NWS.AX) Australian shares sank to a two-year low on Monday as the UK phone hacking scandal fallout worsened, raising concerns that a $2 billion bid for an Australian pay-tv firm involving News Corp could be derailed by political intervention.
Investors sent News Corp shares down as much as 7 percent in heavy volume after Rebekah Brooks, the former head of the company's UK paper business, was arrested on Sunday and top policeman Paul Stephenson quit over the scandal.
Shares in a News Corp takeover target, pay-tv firm Austar (AUN.AX), also fell on worries the deal may not proceed after the furor in Britain forced News to drop a $12 billion plan to buy all of highly profitable broadcaster BSkyB (BSY.L).
Austar has agreed to a $2 billion-plus takeover offer from its bigger rival Foxtel, which is owned by News Corp's (NWSA.O) News Ltd division, billionaire James Packer's Consolidated Media Holdings (CMJ.AX), and telecoms firm Telstra (TLS.AX).
http://www.reuters.com/...
The Australian Green Party is calling for a review of media ownership regulations, but the government has refused to consider action.
Federal Government dismisses need for overhaul of media laws
AUSTRALIA'S media laws and privacy protections do not need a review, the Federal Government has declared.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland said calls for tighter regulation and stricter ownership limits, which were sparked by ethical and criminal breaches in Britain, would not be pursued.
He said the Federal Government was not concerned because there was no evidence of similar problems here.
Murdoch's News Ltd controls close to three-quarters of the Australian newspaper industry and Murdoch owns 150 newspapers across Australia.
All this and more of this morning's developments on the other side..
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