News Corp: Why I Chose to Invest in Limited Voting Shares

I finally took the plunge and bought the "limited voting" A shares at $8.86 of News Corp. (NWS.A) vs the "B" shares (NWS). Here is some of the reasoning for investing in News Corp from previous posts.

Why the "limited voting" shares vs "B"? A Couple of reasons:

1. Murdoch owns 40$ of the voting shares so buying "B" shares really affords the purchaser no advantage as what Rupert wants, Rupert will get.

2. Discount. Currently the A shares trade at about a 13% discount to the regular NWS shares. Now, that discount has typically been around 8% so I am adding a 5% normalization of value into the mix.

3. Dividends between the two shares are treated equally.

Here is the SEC filing regarding the two classes of shares:
News Corp. A vs B

Here is the "Murdoch Agreement":
"Murdoch Agreement"
So, if you have "x" amount of money to invest in the stock, the "A" shares are the way to go as they enable you to, at today's prices, purchase 13% more shares and participate in essentially equal performance. I am assuming this is the reason they were created, to ensure Rupert's control of the company was not challenged. Personally, given his track record, I have no reason to want to.

I have saved some money in case we get a sell-off in shares, if that happens, I will resume buying on the way down.


Disclosure: Long NWS.A, none in NWS