(Why would James Murdoch want to put so much money into a failing art fair, Art Basel?)
Media Scion James Murdoch Now Owns a Controlling Stake in MCH Group, Art Basel’s Struggling Parent Company
The decision comes days after the younger Murdoch resigned from News Corp due to "disagreements over editorial content."
Shareholders of Art Basel’s parent company, MCH Group, have agreed to a package of stabilizing measures put forward by its board of directors earlier this month. All of its proposals, including a much-discussed cash infusion from media scion James Murdoch, passed in an Extraordinary General Meeting this morning, August 3, and MCH can now begin to implement them.
The proposed measures for financial recovery include steps to restructure its debt, but the main focus was an enormous suggested infusion of CHF 74.5 million (about $80 million) from James Murdoch, the younger son of News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch.
The proposal, which would make Murdoch the Swiss company’s new “anchor shareholder” had courted controversy because of his association with his father’s rightwing mass media corporation, and many thought that could be enough to sink the deal. But more than 70 percent of the company’s shareholders who voted—a total of 848 shareholders representing some 91.2 percent of the nominal share value—took a favorable position towards the proposals this morning.
https://news.artnet.com/market/mch-group-shareholders-1899121?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US%20News%20Morning%208/3/20&utm_term=US%20Daily%20Newsletter%20%5BMORNING%5D