It would appear, however, that any offspring from that union will be taken care of through Murdoch’s individual entitlements, without diluting those of his other children.The next Murdoch generation’s nominees are eclectic indeed. For 28-year- old Lachlan Murdoch it is the Sydney adman George Betsis, a creative director who sailed with Lachlan on his boat Karakoram in 1997 in the first Sydney-Hobart yacht race the young media mogul took part in, along with film-maker, Baz Luhrmann, futures trader, Joe Cross, and Lachlan’s American friend, Zeb Rice.Lachlan’s divorced big sister, Elisabeth, 31, has chosen English television producer Henrietta Conrad as her Cruden representative. A couple of months ago, each of Murdoch’s offspring – eldest daughter Prudence, first son, Lachlan, and his siblings Elisabeth and James – appointed their own nominees to the board of the family companies.The arrangements were put in place just after the surprise marriage of Rupert to Wendi Deng. Anna is also believed to have ensured, as part of her divorce settlement, to somehow have a say in the succession planning for the firm, that would make it difficult for any child from Rupert’s new marriage to usurp the roles of her children and that of first-born Prudence from Rupert’s first marriage.Meanwhile, Cruden Investments has been remade.

This fine-sounding charitable trust was set up in 1994, and has been active in supporting inner city causes in New York and Los Angeles.Anna Murdoch’s settlement has been mooted at a minimum $US150 million (pounds 90m), plus property. So where does this leave Rupert’s ex-wife, Anna Murdoch? She married 72-year-old Florida businessman William Mann earlier this month in New York and her only remaining involvement after the divorce settlement in June this year is as director of the Murdoch Family Foundation. Another 41 per cent of Cruden Investments is held by the Kayarem company, which is in turn owned by the AE Harris Trust, whose assets all pass to the four Murdoch children.The remaining 49 per cent of Cruden Investments was owned by the rest of the family, but has, as a result of the settlement achieved earlier this year, been bought out, mainly using borrowings, as the market value of News Corp shares (given as security) soared over the past seven years. The ultimate beneficiaries of the top company in the structure are through what Rupert Murdoch has called “unbreakable trusts for the children”, the AE Harris Trust.Dame Elisabeth Murdoch is a beneficiary outside that trust, holding an entitlement – shared with her son Rupert – in a 10 per cent stake of Cruden Investments through the suitably anonymous-sounding Actraint 119 company.Ultimately, Rupert will inherit this entire 10 per cent, and that will be his main entitlement, held outright and able to be passed on to to any as yet unborn offspring. It was a bad time for Sir Keith: he had been told he had cancer of the bowel and had to be operated on immediately. His health deteriorated over the next few years.Showing a keen sense of symmetry – if not of history – Rupert Murdoch has placed his four children in the position of controlling Cruden Investments, and the related family company Kayarem (named after Murdoch’s three initials), as part of the group of companies that controls News Corporation, the fifth-largest media company in the world.

That makes a total of about pounds 320 million that Murdoch has paid over the past seven years to buy his sisters out of their News Corporation ownership.This story really starts 52 years ago when Sir Keith created Cruden Investments and named it after his wedding gift to his young bride Elisabeth, the 36-hectare Cruden Farm at Langwarrin, near Melbourne. Cruden has been reshaped in a way that accommodates the new family arrangements – Wendi Deng in, Anna Murdoch out – and follows the final pounds 125 million payment in February to the families of Rupert’s sisters, Janet, Helen and Anne, including their 14 children. Lachlan’s three siblings have also just resigned as directors and appointed equally unusual nominees to represent them in the company that holds the 31 per cent Murdoch family interest in News Corporation.
All this activity is part of the Murdoch family’s reorganisation of Cruden, the company set up to house the family’s assets in 1947 by Sir Keith Murdoch when his only son, Rupert, was a boy of 16. Lachlan Murdoch has appointed his buddy, George Betsis, as a director and his representative on the family company, Cruden Investments.