22 December, 2021

Quora Answer: What Would Happen to a Fortune 500 Company if Its Majority Shareholder Donated His Wealth?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What would happen to a Fortune 500 company if its majority shareholder suddenly donated all his wealth to charity? 

There are two kinds of companies in the Fortune 500.  Some of them are publicly traded, and some of them are private.  For the public companies, no single shareholder has such a large holding that shedding ownership of shares would seriously impact their valuation.  After all, they are donating the shares to charity, not shedding them in anticipation of inclement financial news.  There is no change in the management team, and the charity would not likely rock the boat, and just take the dividends. 

If it is a private company, it may be possible that one single shareholder owns an overwhelming majority of shares.  However, unless there is a change in the management team, this is not going to have a significant impact on their revenue.  There may be agreements in place where the remaining shareholders have right of first refusal before the largest shareholder can dispose of those shares.




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