The imminent initial public offering of Facebook Inc. shares has the hallmarks of a momentous event: the number of instant millionaires and billionaires, the implicit market value of a toddler company, the young age of its founder, and so on. But what is also remarkable about the Facebook IPO is the way its founder intends […]

[ … ] Yvan Allaire, chairman of the board of the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations (IGPPO) and a professor emeritus at Universite du Quebec a Montreal, estimated that 13 per cent of the 253 companies on the TSX/S&P composite index in 2008 had some form of dual-class voting structure. For the […]

(The opinions expressed in this text are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Institute or of its board of directors) Alas, the company’s magna cum laude performance as a first rate industrial concern is not matched by its performance in the shareholder business, where it deserves a severe magno cum opprobrio. […]

According to IGOPP, the proposed Business Corporations Act (Bill 63) is a quantum leap in the right direction. It modernize and clarify some dsyfunctionnal aspaects of our business laws and legal system. Furthermore, Bill 63 introduce some useful innovations. Howewer, some modifications to the Bill would improve the chances of Québec to become a destination […]

[ … ] The main question in most of the studies we survey is: Does disproportional ownership destroy shareholder value? We will argue that, while the literature has uncovered some robust evidence, this question has proven difficult to address empirically. A related issue is whether the widespread use of mechanisms to unbundle cash flow rights […]

In Canada and, indeed, wherever there are functional stock markets, differences between classes of shareholders in publicly listed corporations raise important and controversial issues. Thus, the European Commission has undertaken a vast consultation on a proposed directive to enshrine the “one share, one vote” principle. Everywhere, the topic has proved divisive, particularly when the positions […]

The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the author and do not reflect a position of the Institute nor of its board of directors. The acquisition of CHUM Ltd by Bell Globemedia has brought the issue of control through superior voting shares back in the limelight. In an early, path-breaking move, the Toronto stock […]