Mark Zuckerberg had his Facebook listing in May 2012. Upon completion, Mr.
Zuckerberg held 57% of the listed company’s voting rights, while owning merely
18% of the company’s shares.
1
The tool to achieve this high degree of control
surviving five rounds of pre-IPO investment over 1.8 billion U.S. dollars and an IPO
worth 16 billion U.S. dollars
2
is Facebook’s dual class share structure. It allowed
the visionary founder to avoid possible interference in his management of the
company. An outside shareholder will have numerical disadvantage torpedoing his
decision or choice of board members through a normal internal procedure of the
company.
Under the dual-class share structure, Mark Zuckerberg and certain others were issued
certain Class B Common Shares, endowed with 10 votes per share, 10 times the
voting power that of Class A Common Shares. The arrangement, commonly known
as super voting right, has certainly drawn attention.
