Golden share

In business and finance, a golden share is a type of share of stock that lets its owner outvote all other shareholders in certain circumstances. Golden shares often belong to the government when a government-owned company is undergoing the process of privatization and transformation into a stock-company.

Purpose

This share gives the government organization, or other shareholder, the right of decisive vote in a shareholder meeting. Usually this will be implemented through clauses in a company's articles of association, and will be designed to prevent stakebuilding above a certain percentage ownership level, or to give a government, or other shareholder, veto powers over any major corporate action, such as the sale of a major asset or subsidiary or of the company as a whole.

In the context of government-owned golden shares, this share is often retained only for some defined period of time to allow a newly privatised company to become accustomed to operating in a public environment, unless ownership of the organisation concerned is deemed to be of ongoing importance to national interests, for example for reasons of national security.

NATS Holdings, the UK's main air navigation service provider, is an example of a company with a golden share.[1]

History

The term arose in the 1980s when the British government retained golden shares in companies it privatised, an approach later taken in many other European countries, as well as the former Soviet Union.[citation needed] It was introduced in Russia by a Decree of the President of the Russian Federation (Boris Yeltsin) on November 16, 1992.[2]

People's Republic of China

In 2013, the People's Republic of China introduced golden shares termed "special management shares".[3] Since then, golden shares have been utilized by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping's administration to expand control over private companies, particularly technology companies.[3][4][5] During the 2020–2021 Xi Jinping administration reform spree, the government used strategic share acquisitions to increase its golden share holdings.[6]: 275  In 2021, The Economist and Reuters described the Chinese government's stake in ByteDance as a golden share investment.[7][8]

The British government's golden share in BAA, the UK airports authority, was ruled illegal by European courts in 2003, when it was deemed contradictory to the principle of free circulation of capital within the European Union.[9] The European Court of Justice also held that Portugal's holding of golden shares in Energias de Portugal is contrary to European Union law since it presented an unjustified restriction on free movement of capital.[10]

Other golden shares ruled illegal include the Spanish government's golden shares in Telefónica, Repsol YPF, Endesa, Argentaria and Tabacalera.

The golden share structure of Volkswagen AG and the travails of the German Land (federal state) of Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) are discussed by Johannes Adolff[11] as well by as Peer Zumbansen and Daniel Saam.[12]

References

  1. ^ "Our Ownership". NATS Holdings. Archived from the original on 21 April 2014. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  2. ^ Tatyana A. Tchilimova, Anna I. Serebrennikova, Irina A. Sofronova (January 18, 2020). "Golden Share as a Tool of Corporate Strategic Management of the State". Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research. 114: 525–7. doi:10.2991/aebmr.k.200114.122. Archived from the original on 7 February 2024. Retrieved 7 February 2024.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b Wei, Lingling (March 8, 2023). "China's New Way to Control Its Biggest Companies: Golden Shares". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2023-03-08. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  4. ^ "Xi Jinping's grip on Chinese enterprise gets uncomfortably tight". The Economist. November 26, 2023. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 2023-11-26. Retrieved 2023-11-27. State investors have also been taking "golden shares", tiny stakes that grant outsized voting powers, in China's internet giants. In October it was revealed that a government agency had taken a 1% stake in a subsidiary belonging to Tencent, China's mightiest internet titan.
  5. ^ McGregor, Grady (April 2, 2023). "Golden Grip". The Wire China. Archived from the original on April 15, 2023. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  6. ^ Zhang, Angela Huyue (2024). High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197682258.001.0001. ISBN 9780197682258.
  7. ^ "China's communist authorities are tightening their grip on the private sector". The Economist. 2021-11-18. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 22 November 2021. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
  8. ^ "Fretting about data security, China's government expands its use of 'golden shares'". Reuters. 2021-12-15. Archived from the original on 24 February 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  9. ^ "Business | BAA 'golden share' ruled illegal". BBC News. 2003-05-13. Archived from the original on 2008-09-22. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  10. ^ "Portugal's holding of golden shares in Energias de Portugal is contrary to European Union law" (PDF). Curia.europa.eu. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  11. ^ Adolff, Johannes (1 August 2002). "Turn of the Tide? The 'Golden Share' Judgments of the European Court of Justice and Liberalization of the European Capital Markets". German Law Journal. 3 (8). doi:10.1017/S2071832200015273. S2CID 142085251. Archived from the original on December 12, 2007. Retrieved January 24, 2008.
  12. ^ Zumbansen, Peer C; Saam, Daniel (November 15, 2007). "The ECJ, Volkswagen and European Corporate Law: Reshaping the European Varieties of Capitalism". German Law Journal. 7 (11): 1027–1051. doi:10.1017/S2071832200006167. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved January 24, 2008.