Welcome to the News Corp. 2014 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and thank you for attending. We realize that many of you have questions that you would like to ask today and we request that everyone please be mindful to keep their comments and questions to the time allotted. As noted in the rules of the meeting that we'll provide to you when you registered, each person is limited to 2 questions, which will be no longer than a minute in length. Also, photography and use of audio and video equipment is prohibited.
We ask that you comply with these and other rules of the meeting so that we may conduct an orderly meeting. If anyone has not received the rules for today's meeting, please raise your hand and a staff member will bring a copy to you now. Thank you. The meeting will now begin.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of News Corp. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you to the 2014 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of News Corp. And before calling this meeting to order, I hope you will permit me and Mr. Robert Thompson to make some remarks about the performance of the company and our aspirations for the future.
As most people now know, decision to split the former News Corporation integrate 2 separate companies was not an easy one for me. But the split has unlocked value and is ensuring greater strategic focus at both companies. Ultimately, I feel that the creation of the new News Corp has given us a truly exciting opportunity to innovate. In a surprising way, doing this all over again, even
with
an ample war chest behind us, reminded me of the excitement and nervousness I felt when I took over my father's stake in Little News Limited in Adelaide in 1953. I know and everyone on the stage knows that we must earn our own way and develop the responsibilities that have been entrusted to us. That is why I'm particularly proud today to be sharing the stage with my eldest son, Lachlan, who is Co Chairman. It's a very special thing to be fortunate enough to work side by side with Lachlan, who's proven himself to be a talented, successful executive in his own right here and in Australia and will lead us into a very prosperous and bright future. I'm confident that as you get to know him better, you will share my and the Board's belief that we could not have found a more passionate and committed Coach Chairman.
Throughout our 60 year history, we have adhered to the same core values. We constantly seek to better ourselves and what we both deliver to the public. We are purposeful in our pursuit of new businesses that have the potential to change the world as we know it. And We are unafraid to expand our reach to new territories intellectually and physically. To that end, over the last year, we have set along a path to make News Corp more digital and global and to create ever better content that educates, informs and entertains.
Our distinguished brands, much like our heritage, now serve as platforms from which to grow and prosper. In this crucial 1st year, News Corp. Has made smart acquisitions and investments, even as we have been disciplined about cutting costs and finding new synergies. Today, we are proud that our newspapers are fast becoming more digital and mobile even as they continue to show strength in print. We know that the news industry will continue to evolve, but that must be constant what must be constant is our commitment to delivering sound facts, smart analysis and provocative commentary to our readers.
HarperCollins, now with Harlingen and REA Real Estate Australia are particularly bright stars in our firm up with News America Marketing making a substantial contribution as well. Amplify is making progress in the exciting new world of digital education. And Foxtel and FOX SPORTS Australia excel in their market with top notch content and products. The Professional Information business at Dow Jones is being revamped in a way that sets the stage for future growth. And of course, we're eager to transform move into a new pillar of profitability at News Corp, giving us a vital presence in the young and rapidly growing world of digital real estate in the United States.
As I've said before, News Corp believes in the power of words and images, facts and stories to improve the world. That belief defines and drives us and will deliver ever greater results for all of our shareholders in the years ahead. I'd now like to call to the podium the Chief Executive of News Corp, Robert Thompson, who will have a few words of his own about the state of our company. Mr. Thompson?
Thanks, Rupert. Good morning, ladies, gentlemen and fellow shareholders. We have just completed a full fiscal year at the New News Corp and a year in which the team with the board's robust support has pursued, as Rupert said, the digital and global expansion of our distinctive and complementary portfolio of companies. We have aspired to build on the company's proud tradition and provenance and to ensure that we are at the very heart of the global debate over the value of content and the creation of platform permutations for the delivery of that content. We are extremely conscious of our responsibility to all shareholders and thus we were pleased to report in the Q1 of our 2nd year a significant increase in revenues, segment EBITDA, free cash flow available to News Corp and earnings per share.
The results came as several of our companies are in the midst of a profound transition to digital delivery. While Amplify, a digital education company, continued to create its unique contemporary curriculum aimed at transforming the learning experience in schools, aiding in particular those students from modest backgrounds who have been served so poorly by an unresponsive education system. So there is certainly much passion in what we do as there has always been at News Corp. And there is definitely much purpose as there has always been at News Corp. But we are a company that is finally focused on its asset mix, which sets us far apart from most other media companies, many of which are struggling to cope in this era of exponential e evolution.
That distinction was so clearly highlighted by our most recent set of earnings results and by the strategic acquisitions we have made since the company was reincarnated on July 1 last year. We told you on our initial Investor Day that we would indeed become more digital and global and resolutely kept that bow. We acquired for a very modest price the world's leading social news agency for video, Storyful, which has been a supplier of content to companies ranging from Facebook, Device and Reuters. As Rupert mentioned, we are now integrating Harlequin Books at HarperCollins. This is creating a new global platform for HarperCollins as Harlequin has operations in almost 20 languages across 34 countries.
The result, we are fast expanding Harper Collins' reach and that of our authors across Europe, Latin America and Asia. And tomorrow, we are due to close on our acquisition of Move and realtor.com, which will give us a remarkable opportunity to profit from the digitization of the U. S. Real estate market, which is still at a rather early stage of development and holds the prospect of rapid growth. The realtor.com platform patently complements our majority holding in REA and it also fits well with our media platforms in the U.
S, including The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron's The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron's and The New York Post. All will benefit from the sharing of permissioned data. The deployment of our real time ad platform, which is driving yields higher across our properties and from the broader distribution of the highest quality content. And while our digital expertise is expanding rapidly, we still firmly believe in the power of print. We told investors a few days ago that print advertising at the Wall Street Journal rose last month compared to October last year and the print sales of the Times of London are higher this year as our digital subscriptions.
We will not allow our destiny to be defined to adapt spiro Agnew by the nurturing nabobs of newspaper negativity. We remain fully aware of the challenges we face, whether the vagaries of the macroeconomic in the countries in which we operate and the continuing mass media mass migrations. Those challenges will be met with a focus on costs and an emphasis on growth. We are absolutely intent upon fashioning an evermore rewarding future for our audiences, our employees and for you our investors. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Robert. I now call the meeting to order. But before proceeding to the business of the meeting, I'd like to introduce our directors and members of our management. Seated in the front row, Ms. Natalie Bancroft, Mr.
Joel Klein and Ms. Anupala Persower. And on stage with me are Kate Sherman, Lochman Murdoch Chief Executive, Robert Thompson Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Vedi Singh Chief Counsel, Mr. Gersens Vyfeq Lead Director and Chairman of the Order Committee, Mr.
Peter Barnes Chairman of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, President Jose Maria Aznar and Chairman of the Compensation Committee, Mr. Mezra Siddiqui. Directors, Yuan Chao, John Elkins and James Murdoch were unable to attend today's meeting and send their apologies. Also at present today is Mr. Michael Fisher and Mr.
Dowring and Hobson of Ernst and Young LLP, the company's independent registered public accounting firm. In accordance with the company's bylaws, I hereby appoint Mr. Jim Rait from American Election Services LLC as the independent Inspector of Election for this annual meeting. This meeting is held pursuant to a notice of annual meeting of stockholders mailed on or about September 30, 2014 to reach record holder of its share of common stock on September 16, 20 14. A list of holders of the company's Class B common stock entitled to vote at this meeting has been available at the company's headquarters for the past 10 days and is available at the meeting for examination by any stockholder desiring to do so.
All documents concerning the call and notice of this meeting are available here today and will be filed with the records of the meeting. The Inspector of Election has examined the proxies received and reports that holders of a majority and voting power of all of the outstanding shares of Class B common stock entitled to vote at the meeting are present in person or represented by proxy. Therefore, I hereby declare a quorum present at the meeting. On behalf of our Board of Directors, I'd like to express my appreciation to all stockholders who returned their proxies. It's now tenthirteen on November 13, 2014 and the polls are now open to voting.
Those stockholders voting in person should mark their ballots and a company representative will be available to collect them for tabulation. Those of you who requested a ballot so that you could vote in person were provided with a ballot when you entered the meeting. Ballots are also available at the desk where registration took place. However, we urge stockholders to allow their proxies to stand. You'll have an opportunity to ask questions after all matters being submitted to stockholders The vote are presented.
Please hold your questions until that time. The first matter that the backdrop of the stockholders proposal 1, the election of directors. The Board has nominated President Asner, Natalie Pankraft, Peter Barnes, Elaine Chao, John Elkin, Joel Klein, James Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch and Apollos Pazawa, Maswa Siddiqui, Robert Thompson and myself to serve as directors. If elected, these director nominees will each serve a 1 year term expiring at the 2015 Annual Meeting or until their successors are duly elected and qualified. Proposal 2 is for the ratification of the selection of Ernst and Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending June 30, 20 15.
Proposal 3 is an advisory vote to approve executive compensation. Proposal 4 is an advisory vote on the frequency of future advisory votes to approve executive conversation. Proposal 5 is for the approval of the material terms of the performance goals at our News Corporation 2013 long term incentive plan for purposes of Section 162 of the Internal Revenue Code. We also have a stockholder proposal co filed by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and Legal and General Assurance Assurance Pensions Management Limited, whose representative, if Iso de Zoharz, may speak briefly on such a proposal. First, President Asner, the Chairman of the Nominating Committee Nominating Corporate Governance Committee will state the company's position on the stockholder proposal.
Then we'll hear from the Nathan Cummings Foundation represented by Mr. William Dempsey, who has given notice to the company that he intends to present for action at this meeting, a proposal regarding the elimination of the company's dual class capital structure, which was included in the company's proxy statement as proposal 6. As disclosed in the proxy statement, the Board recommended that Stelco defer against the proposal. So I'll now present the results on the Inspector of Election's preliminary report based on the proxies we've received. The Inspector of Elections final report will be filed with our Corporate Secretary following the meeting.
A preliminary report of the Inspector of Election reflects that more than the majority of the eligible cards have been vetted for the election of each of the directors. For the ratification of the selection of Ernst and Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015 for the approval of executive compensation for the option of 1 year as a preferred frequency to future advisory votes to approve executive compensation and for the approval of the material terms of the performance goals of the News Corporation 2013 long term incentive plan for purposes of Section 162 of the internal revenue code. More than a majority of the eligible votes cast have been voted against the stockholder proposal regarding the elimination of the dual class capital structure. Thank you for your support. We will report the final results of this meeting in an SEC filing, which we will make following the end of this meeting.
Following the presentation of the stockholder proposal, if you are a stockholder and have a position relating to any of the proposals or regarding the business or operations of the company, you may step up to the microphone and present the green or yellow admission ticket that you received upon registering to the company's representative. But before asking your question, please state your name and affiliation as noted in the rules of the meeting that we provided to you when you register today. And each person as you were notified, is limited to 2 questions, which should be no longer than a minute in length. We may have many stockholders who are interested in speaking. We ask that you comply with the rules of the meeting so that we can conduct an orderly meeting And those who would like to speak have an opportunity to do so.
President Asner, would you please state the company's position on the stockholder proposal?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to Proposal 6, the Board believes that retaining 2 classes of common stock with different voting rights is in the best interest of the company and its stockholders. The Board believes that the current dual class capitalization structure promotes stability and continuity in the leadership and management of the company, which allows the company to focus on long term objectives. In addition, the dual class structure enhance the company's ability to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified key employees by offering flexibility in structuring our compensation plans without a new dilution of stockholder vaults.
The dual class structure also provides the company with greater flexibility in financing its growth. The company has the flexibility to issue its Class A common stock for a variety of corporate purposes that can enhance the value and strength of the company. As the issue of control is not a factor in the Board's consideration of these transactions, the decision by the company to issue stock decisions for capital raising transaction is based solely on the perceived economic benefits of the transactions to the company and all of its stockholders. That concludes my remarks regarding the company's position on the stockholder proposals. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Thank you, President Asner. Mr. Dempsey, would you like to speak to no more than 2 minutes of your rebuttal?
Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I'm Bill Dempsey. I'm the Chief Financial Officer for the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
Good to see you again. Thank you for welcoming me. I am here to move proposal number 6, which calls for the elimination of the dual class capital structure. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I won't read the entire proposal.
I would simply refer shareholders to the proxy statement. I believe it's on page 65. But some brief remarks on why we're presenting this here today. The Nathan Cummings Foundation believes that the dual class structure provides for control without a corresponding economic stake and that this is not in the best interest of shareholders. Numerous studies make our case for us.
They indicate that dual class structures often hurt performance by misaligning economic incentives and voting power and allowing for the extraction of private benefits. For instance, a study by the Institutional Shareholder Services and the IRC Institute found that controlled companies significantly underperformed companies with a single class of stock. We believe that dual class structures tend to insulate management and the board from shareholder concerns. This has been borne out in the case of our company where we feel our company has damaged our company's reputation with institutional shareholders by ignoring what many institutional shareholders clearly want to see happen around this issue as well as around eliminating the as well as supporting the separation of the Chair and CEO. The final thing I would observe and you'll see this in the supporting statement is that, as we looked at the SEC filing from the company in May, we noted that the Executive Chairman Mr.
Murdock owns 39.4% of Class B shares and less than 1% of Class A shares. Thus despite owning only 14% of outstanding shares, Mr. Murdoch controls 40% of the voting power. Now this kind of governance structure may be exactly what we would expect say in Cuba or in North Korea, but it's at odds with good governance practices here. That's why we urge our company's Board to restore our company's reputation by allowing normal corporate governance reforms
as sought by our proposal.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Dempsey. Anyone else wish to speak to this? Good morning, Mr. Main.
Good morning, Mr. Main.
How are you? I would just like to briefly speak in favor of this proposal as well and seek a response from you on this. I think Bill has spoken very eloquently about it. I put up a similar proposal in 2007 and it was supported by a majority of the independent shareholders removing your stake and removing Mr. Malone's stake back then.
So there's been a long history of shareholders independent shareholders calling for this reform. And it is fundamentally undemocratic that you own 13% of the stock and 40% of the votes. So it means that you can completely handpick the board and control the board. It means that the for instance the Murdoch family can take a record £64,000,000 in salary out of the 2 companies in the last 12 months.
That's fair.
Well, I think if you add up Fox and News, I think you'll find it is. So there's a whole range of governance things that flow from this fundamentally undemocratic structure. And I think that your business record is so great over 60 years that I just think you don't need to hide behind these sort of North Korean structures, these undemocratic structures. You can stand on your own 2 feet and be proud of your record and you'll find that the shareholders will probably support you. We would probably impose an independent Chairman and some better governance and some more independent directors.
But you've also done a poison pill with this company as well which is sort of almost more paranoia about basic democratic processes. So someone like Southwest buys 15% of the stock and suddenly you've got a rights scheme on top of the dual class voting. So it's undemocratic structures on top of undemocratic structures. So rather than hearing from Mr. Asnar, I'd rather hear from you as to why you are so afraid of standing up to basic 1 Vote, 1 Value principles in a democracy which so many of our media outlets espouse to governments and everyone else around the world, yet we have this fundamental hypocrisy of our own abominable gerrymandered structure,
Yes, sir.
So Mr. Main, I did want to address one of the issues you raised on Gerson's Wi Fi. No, no, no, please. Actually it's not up to you to decide who speaks. President Asner did who is an independent Director and Chair of Corporate Governance Committee was an appropriate person to address a question that you raised and a proposal that was made that goes to whether or not the class the dual class structure serves to aggrandize or protect management.
So he's in management. So he's an independent director. That's why he spoke to it. But you did raise two points, which I want to address. One is you said that Murdoch's Mr.
Murdoch took $600,000,000 out.
$600,000,000
Yes. So that's entirely false. Your numbers are wrong. You've added up the compensation of virtually everybody to get to some of the numbers that you've complained about. Let me address the rights plan, because you did bring that up.
Obviously, 2 shareholder advisory firms have spoken to the rights plan and criticized the company. They take both firms ISS and Glass Lewis take a sort of per se approach categorically opposed to all shareholder rights plans. I think that what you'll find is if you look at the particular circumstances that confronted the Board in June, those circumstances led their outside advisors and their legal counsel to recommend that the best way to protect shareholder interest in the setting in which they found themselves was to adopt the rights plan. The rights plan does not protect and prevent against any takeover of the company. All it does is it requires that anybody who wants to obtain control of this company has to pay for it.
That's what it does. And it applies to the Murdoch Family Trust as well as to its Southeast not Southwest and any other shareholders. It gives the Board the flexibility and empowers them to ensure that anyone who wants to control this company has to pay for it in a way that guarantees a return to every shareholder. So that's what the Board was confronting. That's why under the circumstances that confronted the Board they acted the way they did.
That said, we will as we always do receive the comments from the shareholder advisory services as well as shareholder proposals. And the Board will take it up and look at it and study it and reflect on it as the circumstances unfold. But that's the
Schack.
Yes, sir. We can answer it. Dimce, do you want to speak further?
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Steve Bolweber, and I own 3.44 shares of Class A stock. In lieu of outright granting a power to pursue rights to the A Class stockholders, I'd like to propose an alternative.
Someday the post spin off News Corp. Will once again commence paying dividends. I propose that the Board issues Class B voting stock dividends in lieu of cash, the Board can use the cash saved from the dividend issued to purchase Class B stock in the open market. The stockholders will save the double taxation on the stock dividend. The open market purchases will help support the news for Class B market price.
The Class A stockholders will start to receive some voting rights via the Class B stock received as a dividend. And the Class B stockholders will not have any dilution of their current controlling interest in the affairs of the corporation. That sounds like a win win to me. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will study your remarks and consider it as a Board. Thank you very much. I'll understand it better when I read it, but thank you.
Mackenzie, shareholder of the 8th. I had a question on the synergies. Could you speak to that as some of the hodge podge businesses you have? How they would increase the income of all the whole business in total? What the game plan is on that?
And if you could speak about the Amazon book and the publishing?
Mr. Thompson can speak about the synergies more eloquently than I can, but I can say as far as Amazon goes, I can't really comment. We haven't even engaged any negotiation with them yet. And we because of Department of Justice ruling, we can't really engage with Heshet or Simon and Schuster to know what their settlement was. But we'll be getting around that in the Columbus.
We can't comment at this stage.
Just to complement Rupert's answer. On the Amazon question, what you can be certainly aware that we're focused on is return for authors, creating an environment where creativity is rewarded. And apart from our own self interest as a company, those are principles that we will hold dear in any discussions we may have with Amazon. As for the complementarity of the portfolio, I think what you're seeing particularly with the Move Realtor deal is and you will see as we execute and it's all about execution is our ability to use our media platforms with a digital property platform to drive traffic across both to use our real time ad network to increase the yields across those platforms In a similar way, slightly different circumstances, but similar theme to what was successfully done with Lachlan's leadership with REA and the Australian newspapers. The REA the heart of the REA success was the early building of brand and profile.
And we'll be doing the same here in the U. S. Where the property market is at a much earlier stage of its evolution and is particularly fragmented. And you see that really across our portfolios, whether it be the ability to sell Harlequin books on our Sun plus or our masthead plus offerings in Australia. Our ability therefore to use those Australian media platforms and you have to think of every masthead now as a platform to use those platforms to sell upcoming Harlequin and HarperCollins books.
So there is when you look more closely as we have done and as was the point of the split to provide more focus, with that extra focus we've seen those genuine synergies and you as shareholders will see the results of that over time.
Thank you, Robert. I think it's particularly following with the example of what happened with REA when all these things were collapsing in 2000.
Lock the book
of the first 44 percent for $2,000,000 but then proceeded to promote it in the papers. And now we have 62% or 61.5 percent or something. And it's got a market cap of about $6,500,000,000 So that's we want to repeat that, of course, with Moove, but on a much bigger scale and a much bigger market and probably with more competition. So I think that answers your question. Yes sir?
Yes. Mr. Chairman, Bill Dempsey again with Nathan Cummings Foundation. I just wanted to follow-up on your remarks around the director elections. You noted that there are 3 directors unable to be here today.
The question is, if there's some emergency that occurred with them, we'd like to know, I'm sure shareholders would want to express concern, send a GetWell card. So if you could please clarify why exactly the 3 directors are not present today so that we can understand that better. Obviously, the shareholders don't expect a lot from this Board, but showing up in person for about 40 minutes once a year doesn't seem like an undue expectation. Could you please enlighten
us? Yes. They've all expressed regret and I had a commitment. I think I could go 1 by 1. Mr.
Relican, I'd say to be a very popular director, is sort of tremendously busy. And he told us months ago that he wouldn't be able to come to this meeting, but would be the future meetings this year. But he's in touch with us by phone at least once a week discussing our company. As of course, it's James Murdoch, who apparently had a long term commitment and charitable commitment in New York today. And Yulan Chao, can't do the exact reason except I would hope she's having a break after 3 months of frantic electioneering.
But so I will certainly pass on your remarks. I mean, I agree that I'd like to have everybody here in your meetings. They are very active and involved directors all of them I may assure you.
Chet, quick question on the Australian operations. Yes, indeed. Yes. We fired Kim Williams as our CEO out there. And he's written a book, Rules of Engagement, where he says that he got fired partly because he gave a speech launching the book of a Labor Minister's book.
Can you respond to that? Was that really why we filed? Yes. That's nonsense. And
I think if you see I don't want to be unfair to Kim, but if you see those figures which he or someone leaked to you on the performance of the company in the previous financial year in Australia. I think that tells you everything.
All right. And just
a reminder, you have 2 questions today. This is your second.
Further, I'd like to hear from a director not just a management person. On this, my question on the Australian, because you didn't let me finish my question. My broad question on the Australian operations was I was going to ask you about that leak.
I think you'd know more about that, we do.
Well actually, I don't, because I don't actually own Crikey anymore. I have no idea who leaked it. But I was amazed that someone leaked all this inside information on all news' operations in Australia. And so you had some rat in the rank. And then you pulled out the legal guns and threatened to sue everyone and you sort of responded as if this was sort of national security secret.
So I felt your response was very heavy handed in a legal sense. So why did you respond so in such an over the top manner? And just finally on Australia, everyone's talking about Channel 10 and Foxtel bidding for it. Is it right that we or one of our divisions is looking at buying Channel 10? And are there any is looking at buying Channel 10?
And are there any regulatory challenges with that?
Well, first of all, I'm not aware of what our response was. I don't remember it. But as for Foxtel, which is a partnership with Telstra, they are examining by a small piece. And all I can say is that the independent directors here are hiring independent advisers on that. It's not a big deal.
We're absolutely spending money and everything to make sure that there's no possible injustice or wrongdoing. Is that correct? Correct. Mr. Barnes, you can speak to that, as our Lead Director.
Yes. Really what we have done is authorize the audit committee to act because if it went ahead, it would be a related party transaction. So good governance suggests that we should make sure that the Board is fully aware through the order committee that this is an arm's length transaction if it takes place. And we have yesterday finalized both legal and financial advisers to the committee. And this transaction may not happen,
but we're ready for it. And at this stage, and I think at future stage, there's no suggestion of them buying Laughlin shares, which we have somewhat less than 10%.
I think just to first of all, on the case of the leaked documents, there may have been a bit of legal bluster as you know and I'm not sure that was followed through. General Counsel aside, the bluster and lawyers tend to go together. On the question of Foxtel, as you know, the key for us and for our partners Telstra at the moment is the new pricing, which began last week. We have around 29%, 30% share of a market, which is 10.9% churn. So clearly, there's some elasticity there.
It's a little early for us to tell shareholders how that's progressing. But as it does evolve and we'd like to get you some things I think within a month or so when we can be very frank with you about sustainable churn and sustainable sustainability. But that is a really key moment in the evolution of Foxtel. And it's one in the evolution of Foxtel. And it's one that I think we all shareholders would recognize.
That's a valuable asset that we share with Telstra and it's an asset that the team there is doing its very utmost to leverage.
Just one last issue.
It's your third question. Okay. That would be noted. Go ahead.
One last issue, yes. So just in the U. K, so a question on the U. K. I know Robert's joked I think previously about the New York Post and The Times sort of the 2 biggest loss makers in newspaper history.
So my question on The Times is it's obviously still losing a lot of money.
No, it's not. I'm very happy to tell you that this year we'll make a profit.
Okay. Truly. All right. So on the U. K.
More broadly then with the whole phone hacking issue, are we any closer to a Department of Justice settlement? So can you give us an update on where things are at with the Department of Justice in terms of the payments to foreign officials? And Tony Blair for a long time was a great friend of the company. Press reports suggest that he's now persona non grata or we've sacked him or he's out. What happened there?
What was his great falling out with Tony Blair a former great friend of the company? So
I guess I can handle your DOJ question. I think you're up to about 4, but I think this is the end of it. What I can tell you is we have nothing to add to what's in the 10 ks. We are in a both companies have an entirely cooperative relationship and we provide whatever information is requested. And that's what I can tell you.
Thank you.
I'll just say Mr. Blair was never on our payroll. Let me show you that. And I wouldn't make any further comment. So are there any other ballots that need to be collected?
It's now 10:40 am on November 13 and the poles are now closed. So that concludes the business described in the notice of the meeting and I declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you very much Olivier for your attendance. We will always take note of what you say. And any stockholder wishing to inspect the minutes to contact our Corporate Secretary.
Thank you.