In the deal-making annals of Rupert Murdoch, the victories may be better-remembered than the defeats. But Mr. Murdoch, whose 21st Century Fox said on Tuesday that it would withdraw its $80 billion bid for Time Warner, has suffered his share of disappointments.
He once made an unsuccessful run at the English soccer club Manchester United, and years later he dropped a bid for Newsday. In the 1980s, Mr. Murdoch even tried to acquire Warner Communications, a predecessor of the modern Time Warner.
Perhaps his most prominent disappointment in recent years was the withdrawal of a $12 billion bid to buy complete control of British Sky Broadcasting.
So, in light of the Time Warner development, below is a partial list of some of Mr. Murdoch’s greatest misses:
1983: Warner Communications | Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation put Warner Communications in its sights, but the company resisted his bid. The New York Times described the Murdoch approach as “hostile takeover rumblings.” Warner, to defend itself, struck a deal to give Chris-Craft Industries, a broadcasting company, a 21.1 percent stake. In turn, Warner bought a 42.5 percent stake in a Chris-Craft subsidiary.
1999: Manchester United | The British government blocked a $1 billion takeover bid for Manchester United by British Sky Broadcasting, the television company in which News Corp. had a 40 percent stake. The Department of Trade and Industry in Britain said it feared that the purchase of Manchester United, which would come with soccer broadcasting rights, “would increase the market power which BSkyB already has.”
2008: Newsday | News Corp. made a $580 million bid for Newsday, but two rival bidders soon emerged. One rival, Cablevision, entered a higher bid of $650 million. Mr. Murdoch told Wall Street analysts on a conference call he would not get in a bidding war for Newsday even as he expressed skepticism that Cablevision could succeed. “No, I don’t think Cablevision will prevail; just be patient for a couple days,” he said, according to The Times. Days later, Mr. Murdoch withdrew his bid.
2011: BSkyB | In the middle of a phone-hacking scandal involving its British newspapers, News Corporation withdrew a bid to buy the rest of British Sky Broadcasting. The move was intended to calm the hostility directed at News Corp. in Britain, the company acknowledged. Chase Carey, the chief operating officer of News Corp., said in a statement: “We believed that the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corporation would benefit both companies, but it has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate.”