Lachlan Murdoch's quest to buy Consolidated Media Holdings, dead in the womb

By SDH Lachlan Murdoch's comeback has just hit a second road block. When the deal was announced, it included Murdoch, and fellow media man James Packer who agreed along with Murdoch to go 50-50 on the deal. But then the deal’s private equity backer SPO Partners got cold feet and backed out of the deal leaving Lachlan and his buddy James scrambling for another deep pocketed private equity group which they did find in Providence Equity Partners. Well now the deal has reportedly fell apart again over price and because now James Packer only wants a 25% stake in the deal, leaving poor Lachlan with the task of trying to convince his backers to take a bigger chunk. So it looks like all has failed and Lachlan Murdoch is moving on announcing in a letter released by the Australian Securities Exchange today, that the consortium was abandoning the planned acquisition of a 75% stake in Consolidated Media Holdings. Why didn't Lachlan just give his daddy Rupert a call and said “dad, I really need this deal to happen” We think Rupe would have come to his sons rescue right away.

In his father's shoes

BY SDH Lachlan Murdoch is taking a page out of his daddy Rupert's book and is building his media empire, one newspaper paper at a time. According to published reports the former New York Post Publisher and deputy Chief Operating Officer of News Corp has teamed up with Australia's richest man James Packer to acquire publishing company Consolidated Media Holdings for a cool $2 billion. Is Lachlan finally pulling the curtains up on his grand comeback plan? Word is an official announcement will be made later on today.