Controlling interest
Majority of a corporation's voting shares
A controlling interest is an ownership interest in a corporation with enough voting shares to prevail in any stockholders' motion. A majority of voting shares (over 50%) is always a controlling interest. When a party holds less than the majority of the voting shares, other present circumstances can be considered to determine whether that party is still considered to hold a controlling ownership interest.
In the United States, Delaware corporations have a 2/3 vote requirement for a motion to pass. In theory, this would mean that a controlling interest would have to be over two-thirds of the voting shares.
A 2019 study published in the Virginia Law Review said dual-class stock structures, common to newly public technology companies, creates governance risks and costs, including the potential loss of economic value for non-voting shares held by public investors.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Controlling interest”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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