I think this highlights one of the oddities of the current shareholding investment system and how oddly "broken" it is on several levels. Wall Street has become infamous for being a horde of locusts seeking short term growth for one.
Most smaller investors wish for long term growth while being spooked by bad short term and charmed by short term growth. Most don't engage in voting and may not even have control of their vote but their broker.
Perhaps some of it is from fundamentally wrong assumptions about division of management and incentives. Especially given multiple ownership is possible the assumption shareholders care about the long term health doesn't actually hold. Voting system may be influenced by older school thinking that it was more like a country or smaller scale venture.
It is entirely possible for a large vote holder to push for short term policies and get out on top - and it wouldn't even be misconduct let alone something enforceable.
I wonder what a better system could look like - and how better would be defineable for that matter. With another layer in "how could it be introduced?". Since if it is just a matter of starting your own and proving it works better that hard task is ironically easy compared to say changing FTC rules.
The LTSE wants to give startups all the benefits of being public whilst encouraging long-termism through tenured voting and other gimmicks.
It seems that Zuckerberg has already achieved this however by retaining voting rights. That hasn't stopped investors from pouring money in to FB.
Why would any founder then decide to list on LTSE rather then just implement a dual class structure? Perhaps if market conditions were to change, but right now there appears to be no shortage of investor cash looking for a home.
Most smaller investors wish for long term growth while being spooked by bad short term and charmed by short term growth. Most don't engage in voting and may not even have control of their vote but their broker.
Perhaps some of it is from fundamentally wrong assumptions about division of management and incentives. Especially given multiple ownership is possible the assumption shareholders care about the long term health doesn't actually hold. Voting system may be influenced by older school thinking that it was more like a country or smaller scale venture.
It is entirely possible for a large vote holder to push for short term policies and get out on top - and it wouldn't even be misconduct let alone something enforceable.
I wonder what a better system could look like - and how better would be defineable for that matter. With another layer in "how could it be introduced?". Since if it is just a matter of starting your own and proving it works better that hard task is ironically easy compared to say changing FTC rules.