Fox Corporation owns Fox News. Fox Corporation is controlled and owned primarily by the Murdoch family. That is a global video brand comprising FOX News Media, FOX Sports, FOX Entertainment, and FOX Television Stations, and the leading AVOD service TUB, owned by the Murdoch family, which retains most of the controlling power. On June 2018, 21st Century Fox accepted Disney’s acquisition of its assets for $71.3 billion to acquire its film studio and TV assets.
What is 21st Century Fox?
As explained in 21st Century Fox, the holding company of Fox, before part of the business was sold, in its annual report:
Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (formerly known as News Corporation), a Delaware corporation, is a diversified global media and entertainment company with operations in the following segments:
(i) Cable Network Programming;FOX News and Fox Business Network. FOX News owns and operates the FOX News Channel, FSN. Fox Sports Net, Inc. (“FSN, Inc.”) is the largest regional sports network (“RSN”) programmer in the United States, FS1. FS1 is a multi-sport national video programming network, FS2. FS2 is a multi-sport national video programming network featuring live events from UFC and NASCAR, Big Ten Network, National Geographic Partners (The National Geographic Channels,
(ii) Television;
Fox Television Stations, LLC (“Fox Television Stations”) owns and operates 28 full power stations, including stations located in nine of the top ten largest designated market areas (“DMAs”). Fox Television Stations owns and operates duopolies in 11 DMAs, including the three largest DMAs, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Apparently, Fox Television Stations can reach up to 37.3% of US households.
MyNetworkTV The programming distribution service, Master Distribution Service, Inc. (branded as MyNetworkTV), distributes two hours per night, Monday through Friday, of off-network programming from Twentieth Television and other third party syndicators to its licensee stations. As of June 30, 2017, MyNetworkTV had license and delivery agreements covering 191 stations, including 10 stations owned and operated by the Company, reaching approximately 98% of U.S. households.
(iii) Filmed Entertainment; Motion Picture Production and Distribution One of the world’s largest producers and distributors of motion pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film (“TCFF”) produces, acquires and distributes motion pictures throughout the world under a variety of arrangements.
And (iv) Other, Corporate and Eliminations.
The Other, Corporate and Eliminations segment consists primarily of corporate overhead and eliminations.
Century 21st equity interests
Century 21st also holds equity interest in:
Sky: The Company holds an approximate 39% interest in Sky. Sky’s ordinary shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol “SKY”. Sky is the UK’s leading entertainment and communications provider, operating the most comprehensive multichannel, multi-platform pay television service in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy.
Hulu: The Company has an approximate 30% equity interest in Hulu, LLC (“Hulu”) which operates subscription-based services that offer: (i) both linear and on-demand video programming and (ii) on-demand only video programming
Endemol Shine Group: The Company and funds managed by Apollo Global Management, LLC (“Apollo”) formed a joint venture in December 2014 to which the Company contributed its interests in Shine Group and cash, comprising an aggregate carrying value of approximately $830 million. The Company and Apollo have an equal ownership interest in the joint venture. Endemol Shine Group, a global multi-platform content provider, has creative operations across all the world’s major markets, with a diverse portfolio, both scripted and non-scripted, coupled with digital, gaming, and distribution operations.
Tata Sky: The Company holds an approximate 20% direct interest and an approximate 10% indirect economic interest in Tata Sky Limited which owns and operates a DTH platform in India.
Century 21st revenue breakdown
– The Company’s revenues increased 4% for fiscal 2017, as compared to fiscal 2016, primarily due to higher affiliate fee, advertising and other revenues partially offset by lower content revenue. The increase in affiliate fee revenue was primarily attributable to higher average rates per subscriber at the domestic channels. The increase in advertising revenue was primarily due to the broadcast of Super Bowl LI in February 2017, higher ratings and pricing at Fox News Channel (“Fox News”) and the broadcast of the Major League Baseball (“MLB”) World Series, which benefited from higher ratings and two additional games. Partially offsetting these increases in advertising revenue were lower entertainment advertising revenue at both FOX and the Company’s television stations due to lower entertainment ratings at FOX as compared to fiscal 2016, which included the final season of American Idol. The increase in other revenues was primarily due to the acquisition of the publishing, travel and certain other businesses (the “NGS Media Business”) in November 2015 from the National Geographic Society (See Note 3 – Acquisitions, Disposals and Other Transactions to the accompanying Consolidated Financial Statements of Twenty-First Century Fox under the heading “National Geographic Partners”). The decrease in content revenue was primarily attributable to lower worldwide theatrical and home entertainment revenues from motion pictures partially offset by higher subscription video-on-demand (“SVOD”) and network and syndication revenues. The 4% revenue increase is net of a decrease of approximately $220 million due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against local currencies for fiscal 2017, as compared to fiscal 2016.
Who used to own Century 21st Fox before Disney’s acquisition?
The Murdoch family via their trust and Rupert Murdoch had most of the voting power.
We can also look at the compensation for the top management:
The total compensations comprise a base salary, stock awards, and non-equity incentive plans. In 2017, Rupert Murdoch earned more than $29 million.
The Fox Corporation spin-off
From the Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Disney took over various assets, including Hulu and other assets.
After selling a few of its core assets to Disney, the Murdoch family, in a bidding war between Disney and Comcast (to win over assets such as Sky) has reorganized its core TV networks, moving around Fox into the newly formed Fox Corporation.
Of which now they own the majority (42.3%).
Today Fox Corporation is a $7.6 billion company, of which most revenues come from Advertising and Affiliate fees.
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory that transitioned into a for-profit organization in 2019, which comprised an entity called OpenAI LP and the non-profit parent foundation OpenAI. The lab, which was founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and various others, has a core focus on the development of friendly AI that benefits society as a whole. Yet now has primarily evolved as a capped-for-profit entity with an exclusive commercial license to Microsoft.
Its co-founders primarily own Airbnb: Brian Chesky, with 76,407,686 Class B shares, which gives him 29.1% of ownership; Nathan Blecharczyk, with 232,306 Class A and 64,646,713 Class B, which give him 25.3%; and Joe Gebbia, which has 5,113,865 Class A and 58,023,452 Class B, which give him 22.9% ownership.
Google is primarily owned by its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have more than 51% voting power. Other individual shareholders comprise John Doerr (1.5%), a venture capitalist and early investor in Google, and CEO, Sundar Pichai. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has 4.2% voting power. The most prominent institutional shareholders are mutual funds BlackRock and The Vanguard Group, with 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.
Mark Zuckerberg is the largest shareholder in the company. Zuckerberg retains ownership and control of the company. Like Google, Facebook has issued two common stocks, Class A and Class B. The holders of Class B common stocks are entitled to ten votes per share, and holders of our Class A common stocks are entitled to one vote per share. Mark Zuckerberg has a voting power of 56.9%; he’s the primary decision-maker. Other individual investors comprise Sheryl Sandberg, Christopher Cox, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.
As of 2023, major Apple shareholders comprised Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway with 5.73% of the company’s stock (valued at over $130 billion). Followed by other individual shareholders like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, with about 3.3 million shares, Artur Levinson, chairman of Apple, with over 4.5 million shares, and others.
With 64,588,418 shares, Jeff Bezos is the major individual investor. Owning 12.7% of the company. Other top individual investors comprise Amazon’s CEO Andy Jessy, with 94,729 shares. Top institutional investors include mutual funds like The Vanguard Group (6.6% ownership) and BlackRock (5.7% ownership).
Major shareholders comprise co-founder Bill Gates, who stepped down from the company’s board in 2020, which is why these shares are no longer publicly reported. In 2019, Gates still owned a stake of 103 million stocks, which accounted for 1.34% of the company’s ownership (worth over $23 billion in January 2023). Other individual shareholders comprise Satya Nadella, the company’s CEO, Brad Smith (former president), Jean-Philippe Courtois (EVP), and Amy Hood (former CFO).
By 2022, most of Tesla’s shares are still owned by Elon Musk, among the company’s co-founders and the CEO. Elon Musk is the top individual investor, with a 23.5% stake in the company, equivalent to over 244 million shares. Musk is followed by Lawrence Ellison (founder of Oracle), with a 1.5% company stake. Ellison also sits on Tesla’s board. And Antonio Gracias, among the company’s first investors, has over 1.6 million shares. Other institutional investors and mutual funds like The Vanguard Group (6%), Blackrock (5.1%), and Capital Ventures International also have a good chunk of the company’s stocks.
PayPal was first founded in 1998; it was called Confinity (among its founders was Peter Thiel); later, it merged with X.com, its major competitor, founded by Elon Musk (which would become known for other companies like Tesla and SpaceX). From this merger, PayPal was born. In 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion. eBay spun off PayPal in 2015, which would be listed as an independent entity. Today PayPal owns brands like Braintree, Venmo, Xoom, and iZettle.
Netflix’s largest individual shareholder is Reed Hastings, co-founder, and former CEO of the company, now Chairperson of Netflix, with a 1.7% stake, valued at over $2.4 billion in February 2023. Other significant individual shareholders comprise Jay C. Hoag, the company’s directors since 1999, and Ted Sarandos, former chief content officer and now Chief Executive Officer of Netflix. Major institutional shareholders comprise The Vanguard Group (7.55% ownership), BlackRock (6.58% ownership), and Capital Research Global Investments (5.84% ownership).
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet technology company owning several content platforms worldwide (Douyin, Toutiao, Xigua Video, Helo, Lark, Babe). Bytedance passed the $300 billion private market valuation by 2022, making around $58 billion in revenue in 2022, over $4 billion from TikTok.
Acquired by Google, in 2006, for $1.65 billion, YouTube is now worth many times over. In 2022, YouTube generated over $29 billion in revenue from advertising alone. YouTube is part of Google (now named Alphabet), and as such, it is owned by main Google’s Alphabet shareholders and is one of the fastest-growing segments for the company.
As of April 25th, 2022, Elon Musk tried to take over Twitter. Musk tried to purchase the company at $54.20 per share, or about $44 billion. The deal finally closed by October 27th, 2022, and Elon Musk became the largest shareholder.
The multi-billion music streaming company Spotify is primarily owned by its founders, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. As of 2023, Daniel Ek has 16.5% ownership of ordinary shares and 31.7% of the voting power. Martin Lorentzon has 10.9% of ordinary shares and 42.6% of the voting power. Another key shareholder is Baillie Gifford & Co, a Scottish-based money management firm, followed by Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, and Tencent.
The top individual shareholder of NVIDIA is Jen-Hsun Huang, founder, and CEO of the company, with 87,521,722 shares giving him 3.50% ownership. Followed by Mark A. Stevens, venture capitalist and a partner at S-Cubed Capital, who was part of the NVIDIA board in 2008 and previously served as a director from 1993 to 2006, with 6,258,803 shares. Institutional investors comprise The Vanguard Group, Inc, with 196,015,550, owning 7.83%. BlackRock, Inc., with 177,858,484, owns 7.10%. And FMR LLC (Fidelity Institutional Asset Management) with 158,039,922, owning 6.31%.
Uber’s principal individual shareholders comprise Yasir Al-Rumayyan (3.73%), the Governor of the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Dara Khosrowshahi, the founder and CEO of Uber. There is Morgan Stanley, with 5.12% ownership among the top institutional investors.
The founder and CEO of Shopify, Tobias Lütke, owned or controlled 7,891,852 Class B multiple voting shares and 5,250 Class A subordinate voting shares, representing approximately 33.8% of the aggregate voting power attached to all of the Company’s outstanding voting shares. Another key stakeholder is John H. Phillips, an angel investor who placed an early bet on Shopify.
Roblox is owned by David Baszucki and Gregory Baszucki, with a 2.3% and 2.6% stake, respectively. Anthony lee, managing partner at Altos Ventures, with a 15.3% stake.
In 2014, Twitch was bought by Amazon for $970 million. Therefore Twitch is part of Amazon, comprising other subsidiaries bought over the years, like Audible, Whole Foods, and Zappos (in total, Amazon has 12 subsidiaries). Therefore, as of 2020, Twitch is a multi-billion dollar company, making money primarily via advertising through its video streaming platform (creators use Twitch today across many other verticals).
Zoom’s principal private shareholders comprise Eric S. Yuan, a Chinese-American billionaire businessman that founded Zoom. Dan Scheinman, board member and angel investor in Zoom since the start, and Santiago Subotovsky, also an early investor in Zoom. Zoom follows a freeterprise business model where free accounts are channeled into enterprise customers.
In one of the largest deals in the business world, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion transaction. Making Microsoft the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. However, given the size of the deal, this is still under the scrutiny of regulators who need to approve it. If the deal goes through, Microsoft will become among the largest gaming companies in the world.
Pixar is owned by The Walt Disney Company, which acquired it in 2006 in a $7.4 billion deal. Today Pixar is part of the Disney Empire. The principal shareholders of Disney comprise Robert Iger, CEO of the company, and institutional investors like The Vanguard Group and Blackrock.
Marc Benioff, Co-CEO of Salesforce, is the primary individual shareholder, with 3% of the company’s stock. Other main individual shareholders comprise Parker Harris, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, and Bret Taylor, former co-CEO. Major institutional shareholders include The Vanguard Group, Fidelity, and BlackRock.
In a $27.7 billion deal in 2021, Salesforce’s finalized the acquisition of Slack, which was integrated into Salesforce. Today Slack is still a product mostly independently managed by Salesforce, which incorporated some of its features within its platform. Entrepreneur Marc Benioff primarily owns salesforce.
Evan Spiegel and Robert Cornelius Murphy are the co-founders and, respectively, CEO and CTO of Snapchat. Evan Spiegel owns 3% of Class A stocks, 25.7% of Class B stocks, and 53.4% of Class C stocks for a 53.2% voting power, whereas Robert Murphy owns 6% of Class A stocks, 25.7% of Class B stocks, and 46.6% of Class C stocks for a 46.6% voting power. Snapchat runs an advertising-based businessmodel.
Main individual shareholders comprise co-founders Brian Armstrong (59.5% voting power), Frederick Ernest Ehrsam (26.1% voting power), and other individual investors such as Surojit Chatterjee (current CPO “poached” from Google), Paul Grewal (former magistrate who joined Coinbase as Chief Legal Officer), and venture capitalists who early on invested on Coinbase, like Marc Andreessen (founder of a16z) and Fred Wilson (founder of Union Square Ventures), together with venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital and Union Square Ventures.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
