NEWS CORPORATION (NWS): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $34.73, NEWS CORPORATION (NWS) is priced for +11.3% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-06-27.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Exported: 2026-08-31 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/NWS

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 8.9% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: n/a

Valuation X-Ray

Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).

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.

Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.6%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=6)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

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.)
• FY2025 10-K: …0001013237 2025 FY FALSE P3Y P3Y http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#PrepaidExpenseAndOtherAssetsCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#PrepaidExpenseAndOtherAssetsCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#AccountsPayableAndAccruedLiabilitiesCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#AccountsPayableAndAccruedLiabilitiesCurrent…
• FY2025 10-K: …a specified timeframe through the life of our share repurchase program. It is expected that share repurchases will be paid using existing and future cash generated by operations. Refer to Part II, Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, Liquidity and Capital…
• MORN (MORNINGSTAR, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …morn:MorningstarRetirementSegmentMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001289419 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember morn:DealXMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001289419 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember morn:DealXMember us-gaap:CorporateAndOtherMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001289419 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember…
• FY2025 10-K: DisclosureMember us-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember 2025-12-31 0001289419 us-gaap:DebtSecuritiesMember us-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember us-gaap:FairValueInputsLevel1Member 2025-12-31 0001289419 us-gaap:DebtSecuritiesMember us-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember…
• TRI (THOMSON REUTERS CORPORATION)
• FY2025 40-F: Common Shares TRI The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC 3.350% Notes due 2026 (1) TRI26 The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC 5.850% Notes due 2040 (1) TRI40 The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC 4.500% Notes due 2043 (1) TRI143A The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC 5.650% Notes due 2043 (1) TRI143B The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC 5.500% Debentures due 2035…
• FY2025 40-F: …by any of the registrant's executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐ Auditor Name : PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Auditor Location : New York, NY , USA Auditor Firm ID : 238 UNDERTAKING AND CONSENT TO SERVICE OF PROCESS a. Undertaking. The Registrant undertakes to make…
• SPGI (S&P Global Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …the value of the S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC joint venture include an estimated discount rate, a range of assumptions that form the basis of the expected future net cash flows (e.g., the revenue growth rates and operating margins), and a company specific beta. The significant judgmental assumptions used that…
• FY2025 10-K: (10.13)*† Form of S&P Dow Jones Indices 2024 Long-Term Cash Incentive Compensation Plan , incorporated by reference from the Registrant's Form 10-Q filed on April 25, 2024. (10.14)*† Form of S&P Dow Jones Indices 2025 Long-Term Cash Incentive Compensation Plan , incorporated by reference from the Registrant's Form…
• MCO (Moody’s Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: -gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember mco:DSBankingProductAndServiceMember mco:MoodysAnalyticsMember 2023-01-01 2023-12-31 0001059556 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember mco:TransactionRevenueMember mco:InsuranceMember mco:MoodysAnalyticsMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001059556 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember…
• FY2025 10-K: …mco:CorporateFinanceMember mco:MoodysInvestorsServiceMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001059556 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember mco:TransactionRevenueMember mco:CorporateFinanceMember mco:MoodysInvestorsServiceMember 2023-01-01 2023-12-31 0001059556 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember mco:RecurringRevenueMember…

Digital Real Estate Services (reported)

• ZG (ZILLOW GROUP, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …and prevent or inhibit the ability of customers to access or effect transactions using our services. Since our customers may rely on our products and services, including our real estate transaction services and customer relationship management tools, for important aspects of their personal lives and businesses,…
• FY2025 10-K: …than ours. Any of our current or future competitors could merge with each other or a separate entity, which may enable them to compete with us even more vigorously and represent a greater share of consumer engagement, real estate listings, and transactions. Additionally, we compete against mobile apps and websites…
• CSGP (COSTAR GROUP, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …to our customers under subscription-based license agreements that generally renew automatically, a majority of which have a term of at least one year. Upon renewal, many of the subscription contract rates may change in accordance with contract provisions or as a result of contract renegotiations. To encourage…
• FY2025 10-K: …property owners, real estate agents and brokers, and landlords, in each case, typically through a fixed monthly fee for its subscription-based advertising services. Other subscription-based services include (i) real estate and lease management solutions to commercial customers and real estate investors, (ii) access…
• OPEN (Opendoor Technologies Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …and in person assessments of the home, as well as additional review from our in-house pricing analysts, to finalize the offer. We dynamically adjust our offers to account for the level of certainty in pricing each home. This degree of certainty can be impacted by factors such as macro conditions, local market…
• FY2025 10-K: …we now have the ability to make offers in substantially all residential zip codes. We are focused on growing market share across this expanded footprint, as we believe greater scale improves awareness, trust and adoption, operational cost efficiencies, and pricing competitiveness and provides more data. We have…
• BEKE (KE Holdings Inc.)
• FY2025 20-F: …from housing customers. We have also expanded into home renovation and furnishing and home rental services, addressing long-standing industry pain points such as fragmented service quality and lack of transparency. By providing standardized and professional renovation and rental services, we are allowed to serve…
• FY2025 20-F: …services industry in China. We started to research on VR technology from as early as 2015 and built our VR lab in early 2016. We believe that the power of VR technology can help agents on our platform grow their business, get more housing customers, and deliver top-level services, especially when a growing number of…

Book Publishing (reported)

• NYT (THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …and profitability. The number of print subscribers continues to decline as the media industry has transitioned from being primarily print-focused to digital, and we do not expect this trend to reverse. We are limited in our ability to offset the resulting print revenue declines with revenue from home-delivery price…
• FY2025 10-K: …our best lever for long-term value creation because it generates recurring consumer revenue; has the potential to generate more advertising, affiliate and other revenue opportunities; and contributes to higher marketing efficiency. We plan to continue our emphasis on growing subscribers through our focus on promoting…
• TRI (THOMSON REUTERS CORPORATION)
• FY2025 40-F: …by any of the registrant's executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐ Auditor Name : PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Auditor Location : New York, NY , USA Auditor Firm ID : 238 UNDERTAKING AND CONSENT TO SERVICE OF PROCESS a. Undertaking. The Registrant undertakes to make…
• FY2025 40-F: …the Registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐ Indicate by check mark…
• WLY (JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …titles, and discontinue the sale of others in the normal course of our business. We also create adaptations of original content for specific markets based on customer demand. Our general practice is to revise our textbooks every 3 to 5 years, as warranted, and to revise other titles as appropriate. Subscription-based…
• FY2025 10-K: …the years ended April 30, 2025 and 2024: 2025 2024 Key growth strategies for the Research segment include publishing more peer-reviewed research and expanding our journal portfolio, thereby increasing the value of our Journal Subscriptions (pay to read) and Transformational Agreements (pay to read and publish),…
• PSO (PEARSON PLC)
• FY2025 20-F: …shipment when title passes to the customer, when the Group has a present right to payment and the significant risks and rewards of ownership have passed to the customer. Revenue from physical books sold through the direct print rental method is recognised over the rental period, as the customer is simultaneously…
• FY2025 20-F: …any AI), as laws and regulations evolve and develop. If the Group fails to successfully invest in and deliver the right products and services or fails to respond to government concerns and/or competitive threats, its sales and profits could be adversely impacted. A common trend facing all the Group's businesses is…
• MH (MCGRAW HILL, INC.)
• (no filing in the citation store)

News Media (reported)

• NYT (THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …of which have attracted and any of which may further attract audiences, subscribers, advertisers and/or licensees to their platforms and away from ours. Our news and lifestyle products compete for audience, subscriptions, advertising, affiliate referrals and licensees with other providers of U.S. and global news and…
• FY2025 10-K: …make some of our content free as a way to generate large audiences that we monetize through advertising revenue, affiliate revenue or by eventually converting them into subscribers; this includes Wordle and Connections (daily digital word games) and portions of our audio and video journalism (which is distributed…
• FOX (FOX CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …through traditional and virtual MVPDs and other digital platforms, primarily in the U.S. The businesses in this segment include FOX News Media (which includes FOX News and FOX Business) and our primary cable sports programming networks FS1, FS2, the Big Ten Network and FOX Deportes. 4 The following table lists the…
• FY2025 10-K: …for sales of advertising time is based primarily on the anticipated and actually delivered size and demographic characteristics of audiences as determined by various measurement services, price, the time of day when the advertising is to be broadcast, competition from other cable networks, broadcast networks, cable…
• FOXA (FOX CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …through traditional and virtual MVPDs and other digital platforms, primarily in the U.S. The businesses in this segment include FOX News Media (which includes FOX News and FOX Business) and our primary cable sports programming networks FS1, FS2, the Big Ten Network and FOX Deportes. 4 The following table lists the…
• FY2025 10-K: …for sales of advertising time is based primarily on the anticipated and actually delivered size and demographic characteristics of audiences as determined by various measurement services, price, the time of day when the advertising is to be broadcast, competition from other cable networks, broadcast networks, cable…
• NXST (NEXSTAR MEDIA GROUP, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …was launched in 2020, when we initiated the conversion of WGN America to NewsNation, leveraging our core competency in news and profitable foundation to build a network focused on providing unbiased, fact-based news. We believe there is significant growth potential for NewsNation as news networks are among the most…
• FY2025 10-K: …rights for regional and local sporting events. We compete against in-market broadcast station operators, cable networks and streaming services for exclusive access to this programming in our markets. In a different way, our local stations also compete with other stations in their markets to provide exclusive news…

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.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• 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.