Ever wish you could charge your rent to your employer? That would make for a nice day for many of us come "the rent is due" time. This is apparently what News Corp. (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A) chairman, Rupert Murdoch, does with his New York $50,000/month apartment on Fifth Avenue. The rather bodacious chairman, though, is going to pay the rent back to News Corp.While his other posh flat was being renovated, the media mogul was living in a Park Avenue apartment owned by Trump Properties with his wife, apparently needing thousands and thousands of square feet to live in. Nothing new here -- standard behavior for CEOs with golden pay packages. Still, that generally does not include charging the rent to the books of your employer.
As a News Cop. shareholder, would you be enraged to find that expenses like these were being directly charged to the books of a company where you had an ownership stake? It should. Corporate governance takes yet another beating in what continues to be company leaders squandering loads of cash and equivalents without notifying shareholders in the process. Sigh.
Murdoch's decision did not sit well with corporate-governance watchdogs, and Fortune magazine has learned that Murdoch has quietly decided to pay back the money. Aw shucks, how nice of him.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2006 @ 2:30PM
Bob Lloyd said...
Well isn't Mr. Murdock such a good guy to pay back what he has been sifoning from the share holders. It should not have come as a surprise, just listen to all those fair and balanced lunitics at Fox and you understand the rot comes from the top.
11-01-2006 @ 6:43AM
Fruit Helmet Cat said...
See, this is another example of how Hell.com could be used. If Murdoch was listed there we could all go vote for him to go to hell. I bet the board would of asked for money back with interest. INTEREST and a big ole apology