Murdoch Quits as Director on Reuters Board

Reuters Holdings PLC announced that Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate who is chief executive of News Corp., has resigned his seat on the board of the British news and information agency.

In a letter to the London Stock Exchange, Reuters said Murdoch, an Australian native who became a U.S. citizen several years ago, cited “the pressure of other business commitments” as the reason behind his decision to resign.

Murdoch, whose business interests range from magazines and newspapers on several continents to 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and the Fox television network, became a director of Reuters Ltd. in 1979 and a director of Reuters Holdings PLC in 1984.

News Corp. has been widely reported to be in deepening financial debt, primarily brought on by a number of acquisitions that Murdoch has engineered. In 1988, News Corp.’s U.S. subsidiary acquired TV Guide, the Daily Racing Form and Seventeen magazine from Walter Annenberg’s Triangle Publications in a deal valued at $3 billion.