Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive and chairman of News Corporation has resigned from his directorships at NI Group Ltd, NewsCorp Investments and Times Newspaper Holdings.
A spokesman at News International referred to the move as a “corporate house-cleaning exercise” in advance of the planned restructure of News Corporation into two separate media and publishing groups. In addition, staff at The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun were told by email on Saturday that Mr. Murdoch remained “fully committed” as chairman despite relinquishing his positions on a number of UK boards, including NI Group.
However, speculation continues to grow that this latest move foreshadows plans by Murdoch to sell off his British newspaper titles as a consequence of recent embarrassments such as the phone hacking scandal.
The resignation marks the first time since the late 1960s that the 81-year-old media mogul is no longer a director of a UK company.
