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I’m so confused why non-voting shares exist. If there isn’t a dividend, why are they valued at anything at all? What exactly are you holding with your non-votin

I’m so confused why non-voting shares exist. If there isn’t a dividend, why are they valued at anything at all? What exactly are you holding with your non-voting share?

jfengel 4y ago
Although there isn't a dividend, you still own a share of the corporation. Whatever money it has in the bank, or other assets, part of it belongs to you. Right now, Meta has assets of $180B, and there are $2.7 billion shares outstanding. That means each share owns $67 worth of stuff -- about a quarter of which is cash in its bank accounts. That's ignoring whatever actual money it has coming in. Considering its future earnings, its current price of $90 is actually pretty good. What good is that if you can't actually access those $67 per share worth of assets? The fact that they could, in theory, one day distribute it. It means that somebody else is willing to buy that share off of you -- knowing that somebody else would buy it off of them. Essentially, that $67 is completely illiquid, but real. And the market makes it liquid, even though the actual underlying asset could remain fixed indefinitely. It's kinda like getting a loan whose repayment date is "eventually". As long as you don't think it's just going to up and die, it's worth something -- as long as it could, in theory, be repaid.
- sattoshi 4y ago
  The "somebody else is willing to buy that share" is not exactly satisfying because it turns into a Greater Fool theory sort of thing. The liquidation angle also doesn't really work because large companies generally don't liquidate themselves, and either way, it would be for way less than the value of their material assets. The way I make sense of it for regular stocks is because big (e.g. Adobe) can come and buy someone smaller (e.g. Figma) which will distribute cash to me. This works because there is an end to the game of hot potato where the holder wins. This however, doesn't work for Meta. If you want to acquire Meta, the *only* shares that matter are Zuck's supervoting shares. If you buy all of them except Zuck's, you don't really have anything. If you only buy Zuck's, you have everything. So why should I be paying to buy anything except Zuck's shares? Nobody ultimately wants them, except to sell them to someone else.

I’m so confused why non-voting shares exist. If there isn’t a dividend, why are they valued at anything at all? What exactly are you holding with your non-voting share?

jfengel 4y ago

Although there isn't a dividend, you still own a share of the corporation. Whatever money it has in the bank, or other assets, part of it belongs to you. Right now, Meta has assets of $180B, and there are $2.7 billion shares outstanding. That means each share owns $67 worth of stuff -- about a quarter of which is cash in its bank accounts. That's ignoring whatever actual money it has coming in. Considering its future earnings, its current price of $90 is actually pretty good. What good is that if you can't actually access those $67 per share worth of assets? The fact that they could, in theory, one day distribute it. It means that somebody else is willing to buy that share off of you -- knowing that somebody else would buy it off of them. Essentially, that $67 is completely illiquid, but real. And the market makes it liquid, even though the actual underlying asset could remain fixed indefinitely. It's kinda like getting a loan whose repayment date is "eventually". As long as you don't think it's just going to up and die, it's worth something -- as long as it could, in theory, be repaid.

sattoshi 4y ago
The "somebody else is willing to buy that share" is not exactly satisfying because it turns into a Greater Fool theory sort of thing. The liquidation angle also doesn't really work because large companies generally don't liquidate themselves, and either way, it would be for way less than the value of their material assets. The way I make sense of it for regular stocks is because big (e.g. Adobe) can come and buy someone smaller (e.g. Figma) which will distribute cash to me. This works because there is an end to the game of hot potato where the holder wins. This however, doesn't work for Meta. If you want to acquire Meta, the *only* shares that matter are Zuck's supervoting shares. If you buy all of them except Zuck's, you don't really have anything. If you only buy Zuck's, you have everything. So why should I be paying to buy anything except Zuck's shares? Nobody ultimately wants them, except to sell them to someone else.