Business

News Corp. board OKs split

News Corp. said its board approved a plan to split the company’s entertainment and publishing assets into separate companies.

The company expects to complete the split by June 28.

The board also authorized a $500 million stock-repurchase program for the new publishing company, which will retain the News Corp. name. News Corp. owns The Post.

The company said it would book a pretax charge of $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion this quarter to write down the value of its publishing assets.

The publishing company also adopted a shareholder-rights plan designed to prevent a hostile takeover. The “poison pill” will be triggered when any single shareholder amasses a 15 percent stake.

News Corp. also announced new directors for both companies. The entertainment company, 21st Century Fox, named top Christian Dior executive Delphine Arnault; former Ford CEO Jacques Nasser; and Robert Silberman, chief of Strayer Education, to its board.

The new News Corp. tapped Italian newspaper executive John Elkann; Ana Paula Pessoa, a partner at p.r. firm Brunswick; financial expert Masroor Siddiqui; and Robert Thomson, CEO of the News Corp. publishing company.