By FRANK SWERTLOW
Staff Reporter
The list of richest Angelenos is likely to gain at least one new member next year Anna Murdoch.
Murdoch, the estranged wife of News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, could demand half of her husband’s reported $4.9 billion net worth under California law, which entitles spouses to half of any assets or property a couple accumulates during their marriage.
Whether she will actually do so is unclear. After filing papers for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court last week, neither she nor her attorney was talking about how they see this family drama playing out.
Theoretically at least, the divorce opens the potential for a sensational trial that would shed light on Murdoch’s vast holdings. The inner workings of News Corp. are now so murky that some analysts have stopped covering the Australian-based company.
In her court filing, Anna Murdoch says that she, too, is “unaware of the full nature and extent of the community and quasi-community assets and obligations” she shares with her spouse.
Such a determination would be made during discovery or at trial, her petition said and the latter is something the press-shy Rupert Murdoch will clearly seek to avoid by reaching an out-of-court settlement.
The Australian-born media mogul’s New York publicist, Howard Rubenstein, said the couple is “attempting to amicably negotiate a settlement of their property and interests.”
A former News Corp. executive expects that the deal will be cut in private, out of the spotlight.
“She has no interest in diluting the value of the company or breaking up the empire,” the former executive said. “It ultimately will all go to the children.”
The couple has three adult children Elisabeth, James and Lachlan all of whom work for the family business, with Lachlan the heir apparent to run the business.
Several people acquainted with the Murdochs believe Anna, 54, filed for divorce because her 67-year-old husband would not slow down the frantic pace that has catapulted him to the top of a growing worldwide media empire.
“He was never home,” one News Corp. source said. “And she finally got tired of all this business. He said he wouldn’t slow down. My job is my life, and this is what the future will be and the future for our children.”
According to the Australian Financial Review, the Murdoch family owns 30.9 percent of News Corp.’s voting shares and 16.6 percent of the non-voting stock, resulting in a 24.1 percent fully diluted economic interest.
That 30.9 percent stake is considered large enough to give the family control over the company.
“Obviously that’s why Rupert put me on the board (in 1990), to learn about the business,” Anna Murdoch once told a reporter. “It’s really an insurance policy.”
The biggest stumbling block in the couple reaching a settlement could be in determining the extent of Murdoch’s empire, which includes Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., the New York Post and the Times of London, the Harper Collins book publishing company and media interests in Australia and Asia.
To accomplish this, according to several Beverly Hills divorce lawyers, Anna Murdoch would have to hire forensic accountants to examine her husband’s books. There also would be an examination to determine which assets Rupert Murdoch had prior to his marriage and what are their current individual assets.
In addition, the accountants would try to determine what News Corp. and other companies hold and which are private sources of wealth.
“The problems in a case like this can be enormous,” said Norman Rose, a Beverly Hills divorce lawyer who has handled cases for wealthy celebrities. “My suggestion is they come to some amicable arrangement in order to avoid millions of dollars in fees and costs.”
Also helping Anna Murdoch, if a battle surfaces, is the multimillion-dollar divorce settlement between General Electric Co. Chief Executive Gary Wendt and his wife of 32 years, Lorna. He low-balled her with an $8 million settlement offer, and she countered with a demand for $50 million, maintaining that she was an integral part in his success in business. A Connecticut judge gave her $20 million earlier this year.
“Ultimately, it all depends on the individuals and whether or not they want to give each other a hard time,” Rose said.
Norm Dolin, another Beverly Hills divorce lawyer, suggested that Murdoch and his wife take the case out of the public eye and hire a private judge. They should also agree on a group of experts to handle the accounting of the assets.
“They should get this out of the public system,” he said.
While Rupert Murdoch is one of the world’s most visible power brokers, his wife remains far in the background. Those who know her steadfastly decline to comment on the Scottish-born novelist. Like her husband, she is rarely seen at Hollywood premieres and parties.
She is a member of a woman’s organization, the Colleagues, whose A-list members include Nancy Reagan, Betsy Bloomingdale and Marion Jorgensen. The group, which holds an annual Valentine’s Day luncheon, is the largest support group for the Children’s Institute International, a Los Angeles organization that fights child abuse. Anna Murdoch is the president of the board, but a spokesman declined to discuss her role within the organization, referring calls to her office at Fox.
She also has lobbied in Washington on several occasions for children’s legislation along with Mayor Richard Riordan’s wife, Nancy. Even so, her life in Los Angeles and elsewhere remains shadowy.
“I don’t want to be a partygoer,” she once said about herself. “I don’t want to be a shopper. I don’t want to be going to charity things all the time. You can take us or leave us, and we prefer it if you leave us.”
What little is known about Anna Torv Murdoch comes from a few books and newspaper reports. Her father was an Estonian sailor who married her Scottish mother in Glasgow, where they ran a dry-cleaning store. In the early ’50s, the family moved to Australia, but did not meet financial success. Her mother left home, leaving Anna, the eldest, to care for her three younger siblings. “That’s why I am so bossy, because I had to do it from an early age,” she said.
She met her husband when she interviewed him while working as a reporter for the Sydney Daily Mail.
“I thought she was a very pretty girl,” Murdoch told one interviewer. “Her writing skills were not going through my mind.”
She recalled, “He was like a whirlwind coming into the room. It was very seductive.”
The couple moved to New York in the 1970s, and Anna often found herself raising the children on her own while her husband jetted around the world to manage his empire.
“I suppose I could have complained and become a whining wife,” she told biographer William Shawcross. “But I didn’t want to do that. So why not make it a positive thing and use the time?”
Eventually, she returned to writing. Her first book was “In Her Own Image,” a semi-autobiographical novel. Her second was a 1988 potboiler, “Family Business” about a media mogul’s family that is racked by a battle over succession. That novel was followed by “Coming to Terms” in 1991.
Despite her success, she was always in the shadow of her famous husband. “People don’t want to talk about the books,” she said, “they want to talk about Rupert. I understand, but it is very difficult and we do have separate identities.”
As a businesswoman, however, Anna Murdoch has been described as tough, often peppering board meetings with probing questions. “She can cut me off at the knees better than anyone else,” Murdoch once said about his wife.
And now, she is in a position to do just that.
