鲁伯特•默多克常有惊人之举，决定让自己的儿子辞职就是一个典型例子。有时，他很理性，机智精明，偶尔还不讲情面。就像这次这样。但有时，他的一些重大决定则跟着感觉走，无厘头，甚至不可理喻；比如，他经营的《纽约邮报》（New York Post）和《泰晤士报》（Times of London）都亏损严重，而且显然还会继续亏损下去，但他毫不在乎。

    总的来说，老默多克的这套做法对他自己来说非常行得通。但对于新闻集团（News Corp.）的投资者来说就不是这么回事了。近期发生的很多事情都清楚地暴露了这个问题。令人惊讶的是，即使爆出了轰动一时的英国窃听丑闻（一篇迅速流传的报道称，一位英国国会议员本周二称这是“英国250多年来最大的企业腐败案”），并最终导致了詹姆斯•默多克的下台后，老默多克的这套做法依然行得通，至少对他自己来说是这样。

    詹姆斯•默多克身兼数职，其中就曾经包括担任新闻集团英国报业子公司新闻国际（News International）的执行董事长。公司旗下的一家报纸《世界新闻报》（News of the World）爆出窃听丑闻时，素以强硬作风著称的老默多克断然决定关闭这家有168年历史的报纸。新闻集团的市值蒸发了数十亿美元，因为投资者担心随后可能还会爆出更多丑闻。

    是的，事情还没完。调查还在进行，每天都传来更糟糕的消息。证人们称，电话窃听达到了“工业规模”，新闻国际的员工普遍贿赂警方，英国警署总部（Scotland Yard）事实上已沦为“新闻国际的一个子公司”，员工们大量毁坏证据，所有这一切都得到了“最高层”的批准。最高层似乎就应该包括詹姆斯•默多克。随着窃听丑闻愈演愈烈，老默多克决定，儿子詹姆斯必须辞职。于是，詹姆斯辞去了新闻国际的执行董事长职务，转战纽约，负责国际电视和其他界定含糊的业务。

    让人意外的是，新闻集团的股价并没有继续下跌。随着窃听丑闻愈演愈烈，该股不降反升。去年夏天，该股一度跌至14美元，但当詹姆斯辞职时已升至20多美元。投资者们认为，这个历史性丑闻不会对新闻集团的盈利产生太大影响；它不会让人们停止收看动画片《辛普森一家》（The Simpsons），也不会让他们拒绝去影院观看下一部《阿凡达》（Avatar）。

    与此同时，老默多克依然率性而为。上周他带着长子拉克兰•默多克出现在伦敦，令很多人猜测这可能意味着废詹姆斯而立拉克兰。老默多克执意将来要把公司交给自己的儿子掌管没有任何商业上的意义，反倒会疏离公司其他雄心勃勃的经理人。但他根本不在乎。

    但是，新闻集团的股价在上涨——这是怎么回事？这个问题可比窃听丑闻要严重得多，新闻集团的大多数股东们都要为投资这家企业治理糟糕的公司付出代价。通过双层股票结构（投资者永远需要对这种信号保持警惕），老默多克在新闻集团持有的12%股份意味着他有效地控制着董事会，因为他掌握了39%的投票权股票，而他的业务合作伙伴沙特王子阿尔瓦利德•本•塔拉尔则控制了其余7%。因此，持有88%股份的股东们明白，自己说话并不管用。老默多克想理性就理性，想感性就感性，完全为所欲为。

    结果就是，如果华尔街的分析师们将新闻集团的各项业务价值加总，获得的总值几乎是其实际市值的近两倍。投资者之所以给予“默多克折价”，是因为他们知道这家公司的管理并不是以股东利益最大化为出发点。

    同时，前景并不美妙。是的，市场是在告诉老默多克，如果他能放弃一些控制权，做事能不再那么随心所欲，他的财富将是现在的两倍。但当一个人的个人资产已经超过60亿美元时，他还会在乎这个吗？

    总之，对于老默多克来说，如今他的个人资产已经比去年夏天窃听丑闻爆出时多了10亿多美元。既然如此，他为什么要改变自己的行事方式?

    译者：早稻米

    Rupert Murdoch's decision to demote his own son is a perfect example of why he's endlessly interesting. Sometimes he makes business decisions purely with his head, canny and shrewd, occasionally ruthless. That's what he did this time. But sometimes he makes giant decisions with his heart, appearing misguided or just nuts; for example, he runs the New York Post and the Times of London at deep losses that will apparently continue forever, and he just doesn't care.

    Overall, the Murdoch method has worked well for him. For investors in his News Corp. (NWS), it has not worked nearly as well as it should have. Recent events show the problem clearly. Amazingly, amid the U.K. phone hacking scandal that led to James Murdoch's downfall -- a mushrooming story that a member of Parliament yesterday called "the single largest corporate corruption case in this country for more than 250 years" -- the Murdoch method is still working, at least for him.

    James was, among other things, chief of News International, the News Corp. division that owns the company's British newspapers. When the phone hacking scandal erupted at one of them, the News of the World, Rupert made one of his famously tough-minded decisions, abruptly closing the 168-year-old paper. News Corp.'s value dropped by billions of dollars as investors feared more revelations would follow.

    They have followed. An inquiry still underway yields worse disclosures every day. Witnesses have reported that phone hacking was conducted at "industrial scale," that News International employees bribed the police so widely that Scotland Yard became in effect "a subsidiary of News International," that employees destroyed evidence massively, and that all of this was approved at "the highest levels." The highest levels would seem to include James Murdoch. As this mess gets bigger and uglier, Rupert concluded that James had to go. He's out as News International's boss and will work in New York City on the international TV business and other vaguely defined tasks.

    Here's the surprise: The stock isn't going down anymore. As the scandal gets worse, the stock rises higher. It fell to $14 last summer; it was over $20 when James got the shove. Investors figure this historic scandal won't hurt profits much; it won't make people stop watching The Simpsons or refuse to go see the next Avatar.

    At the same time, Rupert keeps making heart decisions. When he showed up in London last week with elder son Lachlan in tow, News Corp. kremlinologists sensed that a new heir apparent was displacing James. Rupert's determination to have one of his sons eventually run the company makes no economic sense; it discourages other ambitious managers from working there. He just doesn't care.

    But hey, the stock's up – what's the problem? The answer is it's a much bigger problem that afflicts News Corp.'s shareholders, namely the penalty they pay for investing at all in a company with terrible governance. Through dual-class stock -- always a warning sign for investors -- Murdoch's 12% economic interest in News Corp. translates into effective control of the board, because he controls 39% of the voting shares and his business partner Prince Alwaleed bin Talal controls another 7%. Thus the 88% owners know they don't run the show. Murdoch, with his unpredictable head-and-heart method, can do whatever he wants.

    The result is that when Wall Street analysts add up the value of News Corp.'s pieces, they get a total that's almost twice as great as the company's actual stock market value. Investors impose a "Murdoch discount" because they know the company isn't being managed for them.

    The outlook isn't bright. Yes, the market is telling Murdoch that if he gave up some control -- and with it, the ability to make those heart decisions whenever he wants too -- he could be twice as rich as he is. But when you're worth more than $6 billion, how much do you care?

    The bottom line for Murdoch is that he's over $1 billion richer today than he was when the scandal broke last summer. It's hard to see why he would conclude that he should change his ways one bit.