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At Facebook, public funds join push to remove Zuckerberg as chairman
Four major U.S. public funds that hold shares in Facebook Inc on Wednesday proposed removing Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg as chairman following several high-profile scandals and said they hoped to gain backing from larger asset managers. State treasurers from Illinois, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, co-filed the proposal. They oversee money including pension funds and joined activist and original filer Trillium Asset Management.
A similar shareholder proposal seeking an independent chair was defeated in 2017 at Facebook, where Zuckerberg's majority control makes outsider resolutions effectively symbolic. Rhode Island State Treasurer Seth Magaziner said that the latest proposal was still worth filing as a way of drawing attention to Facebook's problems and how to solve them. "This will allow us to force a conversation at the annual meeting, and from now until then in the court of public opinion," Magaziner said in a telephone interview.
[...] At least three of the four public funds supported the 2017 resolution as well. The current proposal, meant for Facebook's annual shareholder meeting in May 2019, asks the board to create an independent board chair to improve oversight, a common practice at other companies. It cites controversies that have hurt the reputation of the world’s largest social media network, including the unauthorized sharing of user information, the proliferation of fake news, and foreign meddling in U.S. elections.
[...] Zuckerberg has about 60 percent voting rights, according to a company filing in April.
Also at TechCrunch, Tech2, Tech Insider, CNBC, and Fortune.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:29PM (4 children)
What part of
do you not understand? "These exact people" have no power over what the company did or does, it's all down to Zuck.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:34PM (2 children)
In which case, they can't actually force him to do anything. Sure, they can pressure, but that doesn't mean Zuckerberg has to give in to what they want. So long as he wants to be the guy in charge, there's not much they can do.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday October 18 2018, @07:14PM (1 child)
Not quite true. IANAL, state laws (the relevant corporate jurisdiction almost always) vary in addition to your mileage, and brush your teeth regularly. But someone who owns a supermajority in many jurisdictions must nevertheless act in the best interest of all shareholders and not just the largest majority. There are usually laws mandating this. Proving that in court, as always, is the hard part. But it the costs of proving it (or the cost-odds of winning) enable it, a majority shareholder can indeed be forced to dance to the tune of an otherwise minority by a court of law. But they have to give the current chair the right to remedy the situation first before launching a suit (or at least before a lawsuit would conclude in the minority shareholder(s) favor).
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:48PM
In other words, one of the parties, the New York City Pension Funds owns two magnitudes more stock than the rest of the complainants put together. The rest can just sell their minor holdings and GTFO.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @08:29PM
They bought in and pushed up the price of the stock. They can always sell out and lower the price of the stock. Past that, it probably just sucks to be them. They knew what they were buying into.