Rupert Murdoch faces calls for more News Corp share buybacks as profits surge Laura Martin, an analyst at Needham, which is forecasting a 13pc increase in profits at News Corp to $723m, said: "If Rupert Murdoch is not going to step down [as chairman or chief executive] then we want to know, is he going to sell out of the UK? I don't think it would affect News Corp's share price to much either way because he would get a good price for [the UK newspapers including The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun] but shareholders want to know what he's going to do with them. On Tuesday, even Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire who ranks as News Corp's largest investor after the Murdochs and has long been one of the family's staunchest allies, admitted that the scandal is hurting News Corp's reputation. However, the media giant's reputation is not the only cost of the scandal that the company is facing. At its last quarterly results, News Corp revealed it had booked nearly $200m (£126m) of costs, including legal fees, the cost of closing the News of the World, and settlements and payouts to phone-hacking victims. News Corp said at the time that it could not predict the final cost of the phone-hacking and police bribery scandal, but the media business was expected to reveal a substantial hike in its bill at its results on Wednesday night. Analysts expected profits to increase between 13pc and 19pc.