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It’s not uncommon, from my understanding, for founders/families to have almost all of the voting control in a public company. I think it’s a misplaced assumptio
by cdolan 9y ago
It’s not uncommon, from my understanding, for founders/families to have almost all of the voting control in a public company. I think it’s a misplaced assumption that the public has a proportional interest in voting equal to their amount of shares, or % ownership.
- ggg9990 9y agoIt’s not uncommon today, but was virtually unheard of until Google did it.
- kloncks 9y agoYes it was. See Newspapers/media barons.
- kaycebasques 9y agoWhich ones?
- atypeoferror 9y agoNew York Times is a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Ochs-Sulzberger_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Ochs-Sulzbe...
- kloncks 9y agoNYT is big one that I know, but others include: News Corp, Sinclair, WaPo, NYT Other media companies in general.
- jstalin 9y agoFord.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- edanm 9y agoWeren't those usually private companies?
- adventured 9y ago> It’s not uncommon, from my understanding, for founders/families to have almost all of the voting control in a public company. Less than 1% of public stocks in the US have that arrangement. It's extremely uncommon. Among public companies with market caps above $5 billion, there are extraordinarily few stocks in which founders/families have almost all of the voting power. You can count them on one hand.
- rwmj 9y agoI don't understand why it isn't illegal.
- gumby 9y agoBecause if you don't like the idea you don't have to by the security. And, as it happens, so many people own equities passively (through a managed mutual fund, or an index fund, retirement account and the like) and ownership of a company is so diffuse, these provisions have little impact in practice except against another large entity. I'm not defending the practice -- I think it is a bad management practice myself and don't buy stocks with such provisions -- I'm simply responding to your comment.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- adambkaplan 9y agoWall St. hasn't punished most tech stock prices for this practice (yet). Seems to be an unspoken rule that when it comes to tech companies, the founders know more than the street analysts.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hathathat 9y agoYes they have! [1] Dual- class listing now miss out in huge daily price-insensitive purchases from ETFs driving their stock up. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/993e4c11-8729-3168-a280-69e1d400b1bc https://www.ft.com/content/993e4c11-8729-3168-a280-69e1d400b...