NEWS CORPORATION (NWS): what the price requires
The current priced-in claim for NEWS CORPORATION (NWS) is temporarily suppressed because the live engine record is unavailable. The dated report remains a snapshot, not a current market read.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/NWS
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | NWS |
| Company | NEWS CORPORATION |
| Current price | $31.42/sh |
| Composition | Circulation and subscription 36% / Advertising 16% / Consumer 24% / Real estate 17% / Other 7% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | segment |
The price sits below what even a 5%/yr operating-profit decline would warrant; the inversion reports a bound, not a solved growth path.
Solve inputs: computed at a 8.8% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.
How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| cohort percentile (of 225 peers) | 1 |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple value, while growth-DCF lands below the price. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 1.19x | 4 | expensive |
| Earnings | 0.97x | 2 | justifies |
| Relative | 1.24x | 5 | expensive |
| Growth | 1.58x | 1 | expensive |
Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative Families that call it expensive: Growth
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.4%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=12)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $0.00 | — | no | Negative/zero FCF — equity value floored at $0 |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $0.00 | — | no | Negative/zero FCF or EBITDA — equity value floored at $0 |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $25.35 | 1.24x | yes | P/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 15.2x / 18.0x / 20.8x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 22.06x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $22.12 | 1.42x | yes | BV/sh $15.45, ROE (TTM) 13.2%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $26.24 | 1.20x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $19.87 | 1.58x | yes | Rev $8.8B, growth -0% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.7x / 2.0x / 2.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $24.12 | 1.30x | yes | EPS $2.01, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=7.68 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Residual Income | Asset | $27.12 | 1.16x | yes | BV $15.45 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 13.2% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.6%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $26.43 | 1.19x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $2.01 × BVPS $15.45) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $7.27 | 4.32x | yes | EBITDA $0.40B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $64.86 | 0.48x | yes | EPS $2.01 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $39.59 | 0.79x | yes | Revenue $8.80B × sector P/S 2.5x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $75.37 | 0.42x | yes | EPS $2.01 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $21.73 | 1.45x | yes | EPS $2.01 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net cash | $167.0m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | -0.28x (net cash) |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | -0.18x (net cash) |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -1.6% |
| Burning cash | no |
Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- News Corp is five businesses under one ticker, and the two that matter most are the highest quality: Dow Jones, the professional-information and Wall Street Journal franchise, and Digital Real Estate Services, which is the company's 61.4% stake in Australia's listed REA Group plus an 80% stake in Move (per the FY2025 10-K, "its 61.4% interest in REA Group, a publicly-traded company listed on ASX" and "its 80% interest in Move").
- The biggest risk is that the legacy media spine keeps eroding: advertising and print circulation face the same secular decline the whole industry does, and the 10-K is explicit that competition for advertising turns on "product reach and engagement, advertising rates, advertiser results, availability of alternative media".
- Watch the post-Foxtel shape: with Foxtel sold to DAZN for A$3.4 billion enterprise value and $724 million of Foxtel debt removed from the balance sheet, the next prints show a cleaner, higher-margin company, so the question is whether Dow Jones and real estate growth now carry the consolidated number.
Bull Case
Start with the balance sheet, because for a media company in a declining industry it is the thing that buys time. News Corp carries $167 million of net cash, $2.17 billion of liquid assets against $2.0 billion of gross debt, and a share count that has been shrinking about 1.6% a year. That is not a company under financial pressure; it is a company with room to wait while it reshapes itself. The Foxtel sale sharpened the picture further, lifting $724 million of subscription-television debt off the consolidated balance sheet. A media conglomerate that can self-fund its own transition, rather than dilute or borrow through it, has the one luxury most of its peers lack.
The quality, though, lives in two segments. Dow Jones is the franchise: the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and a professional-information business built on recurring subscriptions rather than cyclical advertising. The 10-K describes the model plainly, a "financial news website targeting active investors" that "provides real-time commentary and investment tools and data" and earns "its premium digital subscription service." The reason this matters showed up in the most recent quarter, where Dow Jones margins moved from 21.7% to 23%. Subscription revenue with expanding margins is the opposite of the print decline that defines the rest of the sector.
Digital Real Estate Services is the second engine and the cleanest one. It is the company's 61.4% interest in REA Group, which the filing calls a "market-lea"ding ASX-listed property platform, plus 80% of Move in the United States. Listed-property classifieds is a high-margin, network-effect business, and the segment's economics are visibly improving: margins moved from 26.8% to 30.5% in the latest quarter on a 5% revenue gain. Inside the company's own asset-based and earnings-power lenses, the stock is supported, not stretched: the demonstrated book value, normalized earnings, and peer multiples all land at or near today's price, which means the buyer is paying for what the business already earns rather than for a growth story it has yet to deliver.
Bear Case
The structural truth a holder has to face is that News Corp is, by revenue weight, still mostly a legacy media business, and legacy media shrinks. Circulation and subscription is the largest single slice of the company at roughly 36% of the mix, advertising another 16%, and HarperCollins-led consumer publishing about 24%. Two of those three face the secular pressure that has hollowed out the industry for two decades. The 10-K does not hide it: competition for advertising rests on "product reach and engagement, advertising rates, advertiser results, availability of alternative media and q"uality, and the company faces rivals "from other providers of information, news, real estate-related and entertainment products and services." Book publishing sits in "a highly competitive market that is quickly changing and continues to see technological innovations," where HarperCollins competes against Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.
The conglomerate discount is the second problem, and it is self-inflicted. The two genuinely good assets, Dow Jones and the REA stake, are bundled with print mastheads, an Australian newspaper business, and a consumer-publishing arm that trade at far lower multiples. A reader who wanted pure exposure to a financial-information franchise would buy a S&P Global, a Moody's, or a Thomson Reuters and pay up for it; a reader who wanted listed-property classifieds could own REA Group directly on the ASX. Holding News Corp means accepting the drag of the lower-quality segments to get the good ones, and the market prices that drag in. The company's own valuation lenses confirm there is no growth premium here to defend: the price is anchored by asset and earnings value, not by a forward bet, which is exactly what you would expect when the mix is this diluted.
The more uncomfortable point is what the inversion shows. That is the signature of a value trap when it is wrong, a cheap stock when it is right, and the difference is whether Dow Jones and REA can keep expanding margins fast enough to outrun the print bleed. Interest coverage cannot even be computed from the filings because interest expense is not separately reported, which is a small reminder that disclosure granularity at a conglomerate is its own friction.
Valuation
Begin with what the price is actually betting, because for News Corp the answer is unusually modest. The segment carrying the priced-in premium is Digital Real Estate Services, and inverting today's price against that segment shows the market is paying less than even a scenario of 5% annual operating-profit decline would justify. In plain terms, the buyer is not underwriting growth at all; the price is consistent with the real estate engine simply holding or slowly fading, which makes this a value-and-asset-supported name rather than a growth wager.
The disagreement among the methods reinforces that read. The asset-value lenses, book value plus profitability, residual income, and a Graham-style conservative floor, cluster right around today's price, landing close to where the stock trades. The peer-multiple lens lands in the same neighborhood. The earnings-power methods actually reach the price, meaning the trailing earnings stream alone is enough to support it. There is no family that finds the price expensive and no single forward-growth assumption doing the heavy lifting. When every approach lands near or below the price, the price is a bet on what the business already earns, not on a future it has to manufacture.
The build of the company runs across five segments, and the honest comparison is segment by segment, not blended. Dow Jones belongs with financial-information peers like S&P Global, Moody's, and Thomson Reuters; the real estate stake belongs with listed-classifieds platforms; HarperCollins sits against Pearson and Wiley in a publishing market the filing calls "highly competitive" and fast-changing. A single consolidated multiple averages five very different economics into one number that describes none of them, which is precisely why the stock trades at a discount to its best parts. On solvency the footing is comfortable: $167 million of net cash, liquid assets of $2.17 billion against $2.0 billion of gross debt, and the Foxtel sale having stripped $724 million of debt out of the consolidated picture. The downside here is not a balance-sheet event; it is the slow grind of the legacy segments against the two that are improving.
Catalysts
The defining recent event is the Foxtel sale. News Corp agreed to sell its subscription-television business to DAZN for an enterprise value of A$3.4 billion, a deal that moved $724 million of Foxtel debt off the consolidated balance sheet and removed a low-growth, capital-intensive segment from the story. The strategic logic is straightforward: a cleaner company weighted toward Dow Jones and digital real estate, with the lowest-quality slice carved out.
The most recent quarter showed why the remaining mix matters. Third-quarter fiscal 2025 revenue was $2.01 billion, up 1% year on year, but net income from continuing operations rose 67% to $107 million, with reported EPS from continuing operations of $0.14 against $0.07 a year earlier. The leverage came from the good segments: Dow Jones grew revenue 6% with margins expanding from 21.7% to 23%, and Digital Real Estate Services lifted margins from 26.8% to 30.5% on a 5% revenue increase. Total Segment EBITDA rose 12% to $290 million.
The thing to watch is whether margin expansion at Dow Jones and real estate keeps outpacing the advertising and print drag now that Foxtel is gone. With the consolidated picture simplified, each subsequent earnings print is a cleaner signal of whether the two quality engines can carry the whole company's growth, and the buyback, visible in the slowly declining share count, gives management a second lever while that plays out.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Dow Jones (reported)
- FDS (FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MORN (MORNINGSTAR, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- TRI (THOMSON REUTERS CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SPGI (S&P Global Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MCO (Moody’s Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Digital Real Estate Services (reported)
- ZG (ZILLOW GROUP, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- CSGP (COSTAR GROUP, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- OPEN (Opendoor Technologies Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BEKE (KE Holdings Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Book Publishing (reported)
- NYT (THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- TRI (THOMSON REUTERS CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- WLY (JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- PSO (PEARSON PLC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MH (MCGRAW HILL, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
News Media (reported)
- NYT (THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- FOX (FOX CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- FOXA (FOX CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- NXST (NEXSTAR MEDIA GROUP, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
News Corp Q3 FY2025 earnings release