News Corp Announces Acquisition Of UK Luxury Shopping Website

News Corp Announces Acquisition Of UK Luxury Shopping Website

NEW YORK, NY (April 9, 2014) - News Corp announced today the acquisition of a luxury shopping website in the United Kingdom that two of its leading publications will help to promote in a new digital venture.

News UK, a News Corp subsidiary, has acquired Handpicked Companies Limited, owner of The Handpicked Collection - a flourishing online retailer with a carefully selected range of expertly sourced products. The Handpicked Collection (www.handpickedcollection.com) was named Retailer of the Year in the Gifts category by the Online Retailer Awards in 2013.

The Handpicked Collection, which launched in 2007, will continue to target its existing consumer markets but the acquisition means that its offers will reach an even wider audience with promotion through News UK publications The Times and The Sunday Times. Research shows that 2.7 million of the titles' readers bought online in the past six months and over a fifth of readers of The Times/The Sunday Times make non-grocery purchases online at least once a week.

Quality of engagement with readers is crucial in the digital age, and this acquisition helps to strengthen that bond through the development of a new retail platform that leverages the reach of our popular mastheads in the UK, said Anoushka Healy, Chief Strategy Officer of News Corp. This strategic initiative also allows us to take further advantage of the incredibly swift growth of ecommerce, which is evolving even faster thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices.

World class journalism will always be at the heart of the News UK offering, but as part of our business development strategy we are eager to seek out opportunities to deliver added value to our loyal readers, said Mike Darcey, CEO of News UK. The quality of the goods offered by The Handpicked Collection are a natural fit for the audiences of The Times and The Sunday Times and this acquisition will enable us to build ever deeper relationships with them.

Our team is delighted to have the opportunity to develop new and innovative retail propositions with the News UK team, said Will Miller, CEO of The Handpicked Collection. The possibilities are vast, and backed by the UK's leading national newspapers we believe this opens up an incredibly exciting evolution in the e-commerce marketplace. The team have worked extremely hard, bringing together their diverse expertise and creativity to build the company up from the simple idea it was in 2007, to what it is today.

The online shopping market continues to boom with double-digit annual growth and the popularity of e-commerce is expected to soar over the coming year, with $178 billion forecast to be spent online in the UK in 2014.

Today's announcement follows several other digital initiatives being undertaken by The Times in the UK, including:

Times Wealth Management Services offering readers the opportunity to invest in a range of products such as ISAs, SIPPs, funds and Investment Trusts, together with access to expert advice and all at competitive rates (launched March 2014)

Times Currency Services for highly competitive international currency transactions (launched October 2013) at www.timescurrencyservices.co.uk

Times Tutorials which helps parents assist their children with their studies at a fraction of the private tutoring costs (launched September 2013) at www.timestutorials.co.uk

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About News Corp

News Corp (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content to consumers throughout the world. The company comprises businesses across a range of media, including: news and information services, cable network programming in Australia, digital real estate services, book publishing, digital education, and pay-TV distribution in Australia. Headquartered in New York, the activities of News Corp are conducted primarily in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. More information: www.newscorp.com.

Contact:

Ashley Huston

News Corp

212-416-2025

ahuston@newscorp.com

@ashleyshuston

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