NWSA

News Corp is a diversified media/information business now built around three high-quality engines — Dow Jones (WSJ, Barron's, and the growing Risk & Compliance / Factiva professional-information stack), Digital Real Estate (a 61.4% stake in ASX-listed REA Group plus 80% of Realtor.com's Move), and HarperCollins — the world's #2 consumer book publisher. FY2025 revenue of $8.45B grew a modest +2.4%, but the more important story is portfolio quality: revenue fell from $10.4B (FY2022) as the company shed lower-margin, capital-intensive assets, and the top line has now re-stabilized and turned back up. The MD&A confirms this is a deliberately simplified, five-segment franchise.

The balance sheet is the anchor of the bull case. Stockholders' equity of $8.77B (+8.1%), cash of $2.40B (+28.4%) against just $1.94B long-term debt (-7.5%) and $25M current debt leaves the company in a net-cash position, with a 1.84x current ratio ($4.81B / $2.61B). Operating cash flow of $978M against $407M capex funds roughly $571M of free cash flow, which comfortably covers the $185M dividend and $150M of buybacks with room to spare. ROE is a respectable 13.4%. Critically, the publicly-listed REA Group stake alone underpins a sum-of-the-parts value that has historically exceeded News Corp's own market cap of $15.1B — so at 1.8x sales and 12.9x earnings you are paying a modest price for the operating businesses on top of a marked-to-market equity stake.