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Rupert Murdoch's eldest son and heir apparent announced on Friday that he was giving up his role as deputy chief operating officer to go and live in Australia with his wife, Sarah, and their baby son.

A long analysis piece by The Wall Street Journal suggests that Lachlan resigned due to tensions within the Murdoch family, centring on the question of how the family fortune and its 29.5% controlling voting stake in News Corp will be distributed among his six children.

It also alleges that Lachlan was unhappy because his control of the Fox TV station group was undermined due to the close relationship between the group's CEO Jack Abernethy and Fox News chief Roger Ailes, whom it calls a "close confidant" of Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch and his third wife, former News Corp executive Wendi Deng, are believed to have attempted to transfer some control of the voting stake, valued at $5.1bn (£2.9bn), to their two children, three-year-old Grace and two-year-old Chloe. The trust holds 28.5% of the voting shares and Murdoch separately holds 1%.

The paper quotes a source "close to the matter" as saying that Murdoch senior "has been alienated and isolated from his older kids".

Lachlan has apparently opposed the move, which would disadvantage him and the other three children, to whom control would currently pass were Murdoch to die.

The other three children are Prudence, from Murdoch's first marriage to Patricia Booker, and Elisabeth and James, Lachlan's siblings from Murdoch's second marriage, to Anna Torv.

The reaction to Lachlan's departure from News Corp investors has been more positive than negative, because it makes it less likely that Peter Chernin, the president and chief operating officer, will leave. As his deputy, Chernin is set to take over Lachlan's responsibilities.

Along with James Murdoch, Chernin is tipped to succeed Rupert at the head of News Corp.

In addition, there is the prospect that shareholders will benefit from a break-up of News Corp upon Murdoch's retirement or death.

According to Andrew Neil, who was close to Murdoch when he edited the Sunday Times, the company will not stay intact after Murdoch's death. He said yesterday that "a lot of the family will just want to cash out".

The future of the company is further complicated by the role of John Malone, the head of Liberty Media, who has taken Murdoch by surprise by building up a near 20% voting stake in News Corp last year.

Murdoch immediately retaliated by constructing a poison pill defence, which would dilute Malone's stake, but has since said that he wanted to buy all or part of the stake.

Analysts believe this is likely to involve Malone getting in return some of News Corp's assets, which cover newspapers in the US, UK and Australia, the 20th Century Fox film studio, Fox TV, DirecTV, BSkyB, Star TV and HarperCollins.

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