Share-ownership structure

Despite a series of scandals and increased regulatory and congressional pressure, the biggest problem facing Facebook is that of its true believer founder and CEO.

I was recently presenting to the board of a large European public company on the topic of activism when one of the directors asked me a question that perfectly illustrated the way activism is changing the conditions inside the boardroom. The director asked: “Do activists not understand how the fiduciary duty of boards extends beyond simply servicing their shareholders? Do they not understand the appropriate order of how strategic decisions are made by a company?” 

As proxy season hits, Barron’s has a look at seven big-company showdowns, including Boeing, Allergan, GE, Facebook and Amazon. If you didn’t see it, the piece is useful for investors, but even more instructive for CEOs and directors looking to suss out some of the big themes that are potentially emerging this year.

Les 11 premiers magasins de cannabis ouvrent leurs portes lundi dans le Sud et l'Est de l'Ontario, soit moins de la moitié de ceux qui ont été sélectionnés par la loterie à la mi-janvier et qui ont pu présenter une demande auprès de la Commission des alcools et des jeux de l'Ontario.

Silicon Valley's power players are already preparing for the grim spectre of mortality.

The debate on whether the capital market should allow companies here to adopt a dual-class share structure has been rekindled amid a growing number of short-term investors rapidly entering and leaving Korea.

Large asset managers are in a position to vote millions of shares; yet, there’s often much confusion around how these voting decisions are made. How are large asset managers influenced by proxy advisors? Do the portfolio managers or governance professionals make final voting decisions? How do large asset managers want to engage with board members?

Dual-class share structures take a lot of heat from practitioners and academics alike. When Snap Inc., was preparing for its initial public offering (IPO) in 2017, CalPERS and other institutional investors harshly criticized the company’s move to create a new share class with no voting power. Similarly, before Lyft went public this year, a group of institutional investors unsuccessfully lobbied its board to abandon a proposed dual-class structure.

The listing of ride-sharing business Lyft has hardly gone to plan. The company’s shares have fallen more than 20% from their listing price in just a matter of weeks, and investors have now filed two separate class action lawsuits claiming that the listing was overhyped.

This week denim lovers will get the opportunity to invest in more than just a pair of Levi 501s. For the first time in more than three decades, investors can buy shares of the world’s biggest jeans seller.

Both companies are seeking new revenue sources as their bread-and-butter businesses struggle

WeWork is far from alone in having a multi-class share structure: One in five companies that went public in the United States in 2017 had share structures where some investors are more equal than others.

The US new-issues market is the de facto standard setter for the rest of the world. Undemocratic voting structures are an unwelcome export

Billionaire Salesforce founder Marc Benioff bought Time. Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post. The Emerson Collective, a non-profit run by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs (the widow of Steve Jobs), bought The Atlantic.