Don't cry for me, Adelaide.RUPERT MURDOCH, the world's most powerful media baron, has traveled far and wide since inheriting, at age 22, a modest newspaper business from which he has created a global empire. But until now, he was always returned for News Corp's annual meeting in Adelaide, the Australian city where he got his start. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] That era ended this fall, when shareholders voted overwhelmingly to shift the group's corporate headquarters and main market listing from Australia to the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Murdoch's decision to move not only provoked a standoff over corporate governance Corporate Governance The relationship between all the stakeholders in a company. This includes the shareholders, directors, and management of a company, as defined by the corporate charter, bylaws, formal policy, and rule of law. that almost derailed his plans, but has also triggered plenty of angst in a country whose relatively small population and geographical isolation Geographic isolation, or allopatry, is a term used in the study of evolution. When part of a population of a species becomes geographically isolated from the remainder, it may over time evolve characteristics different from the parent population (due to natural selection). make it prone to fears of marginalization mar·gin·al·ize tr.v. mar·gin·al·ized, mar·gin·al·iz·ing, mar·gin·al·iz·es To relegate or confine to a lower or outer limit or edge, as of social standing. . "For some, [the move] will reinforce the sense of losing relevance," said Gerard Minack, equity strategist at ABN Amro ABN AMRO Algemene Bank Nederland-Amsterdam Roterdam Bank (Dutch bank) in Sydney. In reality, many Australians had long viewed News Corp's departure as inevitable. The group controls about 75 percent of the newspaper market in Australia, but its local operations are not much more than a footnote in the Murdoch empire. And with the Australian economy in its 14th year of expansion and the stock market at record levels, many observers say concerns about relevance are groundless. It was in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, just over 50 years ago that Murdoch, fresh from Oxford University (where he dabbled dab·ble v. dab·bled, dab·bling, dab·bles v.tr. To splash or spatter with or as if with a liquid: "The moon hung over the harbor dabbling the waves with gold" in left-wing politics) began his career after his father's unexpected death. From this provincial base, he launched The Australian, the only national broadsheet, a decade later and plotted his first moves into the entertainment sector. He later returned to England, where he bought The Sun and The Times. In the 1970s, he moved to New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , becoming a U.S. citizen in 1985 to further his business interests. News Corp. hopes its shift to the U.S. and inclusion in the Standard & Poor's 500 will help it bring more access to the world's biggest capital markets. This should provide extra firepower to finance even more ambitious deals. --Virginia Marsh, Financial Times |
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