By Miriam Steffens
ELISABETH MURDOCH, the daughter of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has launched an international expansion of her TV production company, Shine, in a move that could see her beat her brother Lachlan in building a media business in Australia.
Emulating her father's global ambitions, Ms Murdoch last week expanded the London-based Shine - which she founded in 2001 and has since grown into Britain's second-biggest independent production company, worth about £200 million ($413 million) - into Europe's biggest economy, setting up offices in Munich and Cologne to produce TV shows for the German market.
Ms Murdoch, 40, said the move was the first step of a push over the next 12 months to enter new markets, including other parts of Europe, and Australia.
"Our intention is to look for people who match our beliefs and culture to form new bases for Shine internationally," she was quoted in the British press. "We will do this via start-up or through acquisition in territories we've outlined as key to the next phase in our development."
The expansion plans for Shine come a month after Ms Murdoch rejected an offer by her father to join the News Corp board following the resignation of his second-in-command, Peter Chernin. She has become an observer on the board, but last week's move was interpreted as further evidence that she had no interest in rejoining her father's media empire for the time being.
Shine owns five production labels, including the largest independent US production company, Reveille, which is behind programs such as Ugly Betty, the US version of The Office and diet contest The Biggest Loser.
Ms Murdoch told journalists last year that, after the $US200 million ($289 million) takeover of Reveille, her company planned to look at production companies in Australia.
Her ambitions come as her younger brother Lachlan, 37, has been trying to build up his own media empire in Australia since leaving his executive positions at News Corp and setting up his private investment company, Illyria, in Sydney in 2005.
His planned $3.3 billion privatisation of James Packer's Consolidated Media Holdings last year fell over after his US financial backers, Providence Equity Partners, and Mr Packer fell out over the price.
But the collapse of the deal turned into a lucky break in light of the fallout from the global recession that followed.
Illyria has made other smaller investments, including buying into last year's winning team of the Indian Premier League cricket, the Rajasthan Royals.
Talking about his ambitions, Mr Murdoch said in a interview this month that Australian media companies were still more expensive than their peers overseas and that he would expect prices to fall further "before really wanting to dive in and invest".