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Rupert Murdoch has stepped down as director of a number of companies behind British newspapers The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times, a News International spokeswoman said on Saturday. “Last week Mr Murdoch stepped down from a number of boards, many of them small subsidiary boards, both in the UK and US” – a spokeswoman for News Corp’s British publishing arm News International said.
The News Corp chief executive resigned from the boards of News Corp Investments, News International Group Limited and Times Newspaper Holdings in the last week.
He has also stepped down from boards in the US, Australia and India.
The spokeswoman said the move was ‘nothing more than a corporate house-cleaning exercise prior to the company split’.
The move comes after Murdoch announced last month that News Corp will press ahead with a split of the entertainment division from its struggling publishing business, saying he is committed to both units.
He said he would be chairman of both companies, including an entertainment unit led by Fox studios and television assets, and a publishing unit that includes The Wall Street Journal and Times of London.
Murdoch has been under increasing pressure from British shareholders and politicians over claims of phone hacking and corruption at some of his British newspapers.

Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch has stepped down as a director of News International, in a move that will fuel speculation the media mogul is preparing to sell off his UK newspapers.
In an email sent on Saturday, staff at The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun were told that Murdoch remained ‘fully committed’ as chairman despite relinquishing positions on a number of UK boards, including NI Group.
The move is in line with plans to restructure his News Corporation empire, the message read. Murdoch has already outlined plans to split the group into two.
Under the proposals, a largely US-based media empire consisting of Fox TV, the 20th Century Fox film studio and other entertainment assets, will be separated from the publishing businesses, including The Wall Street Journal, alongside Murdoch’s UK and Australian newspapers and HarperCollins book publishing.
The media mogul plans to remain the chairman of both businesses although Chase Carey, chief operating officer at News Corp, will be elevated to the number two spot at the entertainment business.
In line with that strategy, Murdoch has also resigned from the boards of a dozen companies with interests in the US, Australia and India, it was revealed. It is thought that he resigned as director at some point over the last week.
Staff were informed of the development in an email (seen by the Guardian) that was sent out on Saturday.
It states that the decision ‘is part of the preparation of the business for the upcoming restructure into two companies’.

An email sent to newspaper staff on Saturday said the latest move “is part of the preparation of the business for the upcoming restructure into two companies” – British media reported.
In the memo News International boss Tom Mockridge said Murdoch “remains fully committed… as chairman of what will become the largest newspaper and digital group in the world.”
“We look forward to seeing him in London over the Olympic Games” – he added.
The announcement fuelled speculation in the British press however that News Corp could be preparing to sell its British newspapers which have been at the centre of Britain’s phone hacking scandal.
Opposition Labour MP Tom Watson, a long standing Murdoch critic, told the Independent newspaper: “It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that Mr Murdoch is deserting his loyal staff who are left to clean up the ruins after the wrongdoing that has been exposed.
“No matter how far he runs, he can never evade responsibility for creating a corporate culture that allowed widespread criminality to take place.”
Watson was a member of the select committee which earlier this year branded Murdoch as “not a fit person” to run a major international business.
Murdoch has been under increasing pressure from British shareholders and politicians over claims of phone hacking and corruption at some of his British newspapers in what has been a turbulent year for the 81-year-old Australian national.
His board resignations comes 12 months after the closure of the flagship News of The World tabloid weekly following allegations that journalists accessed the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl and hacked the phones of dozens of public figures.
The move will seen by many as a way of detaching News Corp from the scandal that has led to the departure of several senior executives in Britain.
The Financial Times said Murdoch was “symbolically distancing himself from the Fleet Street empire he began when he bought the News of the World and The Sun in 1969″.