Publisher News Corp (ASX: NWS) saw its share price jump 4.8% to $19.59, after posting strong fourth quarter results.
It can be difficult to get a handle on News Corp's businesses, so here's a quick summary…
News Corp operates five core divisions, News and Information Services, Book Publishing, Digital Real Estate Services, Cable Network programming and Digital Education.
By far and away the largest division is News and Information Services, which includes Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, newspapers such as the New York Post, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail and Herald Sun and the UK's The Sun and The Times.
Book Publishing is performed by publisher HarperCollins, while Digital Real Estate Services represents News Corp's stakes in REA Group Ltd (ASX: REA) and Move in the US. Move owns a number of brands, all providing real estate services. Cable Network programming does what is says on the box, while Digital Education is Amplify, providing digital education to students. News also holds a 50% stake in Foxtel.
The table below gives you an idea of where News Corp generates most of its earnings.
As you can see from the table above, Amplify is loss making and News Corp has initiated a strategic review of its digital education segment.
Excluding one-off charges, News Corp posted a profit of US$272 million, a small 1.5% rise over the previous year, but in a nice bonus for shareholders has declared a semi-annual cash dividend of US$0.10 per share. That comes on full year revenues of US$8.6 billion, again, a 1% increase over the previous year's result.
Thanks to a series of recent acquisitions, News Corp has seen its cash balance fall from above US$3 billion to US$1.95 billion, but still has no debt.
Foolish takeaway
Deciding to invest in News Corp means making a call on what you think will happen to its newspaper and publishing assets in the future. Will they be able to make a profitable transition to online? Revenues are falling, and could continue to fall. But CEO Robert Thomson expects the year ahead to be an opportunity, suggesting the company is confident it can improve on this year's results.
