Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Apollo Shareholders Rule

One trend in corporate finance is that many companies have moved to unequal voting rights. For example, Comcast, Alphabet, Facebook, Lyft, Pinterest, and many others have some type of dual class share structure, with different voting rights for each share class. Investment management company Apollo Global Management is feeling different. Recently, former CEO Leon Black proposed that the company move to one share, one vote. As Mr. Black stated:

Moving to a “one share, one vote” structure to ensure that the voting rights of our shareholders align with their economic interests by eliminating the Class C voting stock, as well as examining a move to a single class of common stock.

Apparently, Mr. Black feels that shareholders should be counted by the number of shares owned.