News Corp Buyback Nears Halfway Mark on Authorized $1 Billion
News Corp (NWSA) had repurchased roughly US$425.9 million of stock under its 2025 program as of August 17, about 43% of the US$1 billion authorization, according to a filing that also corrected the company's total share count.
News Corp (NWSA), the publisher whose holdings include The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, disclosed cumulative repurchases under its 2025 Repurchase Program of approximately US$425,866,410 across Class A and Class B stock as of August 17, putting the buy-back near the halfway point of its US$1 billion authorization.
The pace of purchases has been building. Class A shares bought back before the previous day totaled 10,783,668 by August 17, up from a base of zero implied in earlier filings, with an additional 58,482 Class A shares purchased on the previous day for US$1,697,673.98. Class B activity ran on a separate track: 5,062,536 shares repurchased before the previous day, plus 25,457 shares bought on August 14 for US$842,361.95.
The two share classes traded at markedly different levels during the buy-back. On the same day, Class B purchases fell in a band of US$32.90 to US$33.36, while Class A traded between US$28.87 and US$29.25. The spread has held through the program: the highest price paid for Class A stock reached US$30.79 on June 8, versus a Class B high of US$35.29 on the same date. News Corp has continued buying both classes despite the gap, a pattern consistent with a repurchase program designed to reduce total shares outstanding rather than target one class over the other.
That reduction showed up directly in the company's share count. Class A common stock on issue fell from 359,515,895 shares, reported around August 13 and 14, to 359,278,622 shares as of August 17, a decline of about 237,273 shares. The August 17 filing updated or amended a previous announcement, specifically correcting the total securities on issue reported in item 3A.1 — a departure from the straightforward daily buy-back notifications News Corp filed between August 12 and August 14, none of which carried an amendment flag.
The combination of a rising cumulative repurchase total, an accelerating daily pace on the Class A side, and a formal correction to the outstanding-share figure points to a buy-back program that has moved past its early stages and into a phase where the company is actively managing its reported share count alongside the purchases themselves. With roughly 57% of the US$1 billion authorization still unspent, the trajectory of daily purchase volumes disclosed through mid-August will determine how quickly News Corp works through the remainder of the program.