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Article: Filling a war chest? News Corp. may use loans in Liberty buyback.(The News Corporation Ltd.)
- Article from:
- Daily Variety
- Article date:
- December 2, 2004
- Author:
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Wall Street wondered Wednesday whether News Corp.'s move to raise a massive $1.7 billion in debt could be part of a plan to wrest stock back from John Malone, who has sharply upped his stake in Rupert Murdoch's generally well-guarded empire.
Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Richard Greenfield--characterizing the transaction as "rather odd"--said News Corp. hardly needs the cash. He speculated that the conglom could use a chunk of the money to buy back stock from Malone's Liberty Media at a discount, so as to split the avoided tax charge.
"If News Corp. had no cash sitting on their balance sheet, one might reason that it makes sense to raise debt to ...