Snap Chair of the Board Michael Lynton, in a letter to CII, defended the company’s offering of no-vote shares to public investors in its IPO. Lynton was responding to a letter from CII and 18 investors that objected to the zero-vote shares. Lynton noted that the founders and top executives already have super-voting rights. Lynton said the board concluded “it would benefit our stockholders to extend this control beyond the IPO” because the dual-class structure “prolongs our ability to remain a founder-led company,” which “will maximize our ability to create stockholder value.” In Asia, meanwhile, exchanges are rethinking their longstanding opposition to dual class shares. On February 16, the Singapore Exchange (SGX), launched a consultation on permitting dual-class share structures. A proposal by the Hong Kong Exchange to permit dual class was shot down by its regulator in 2015, but HKE’s CEO Charles Li in January suggested the topic be revisited.
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