Quote:
Originally Posted by Kushan
Sure, no single entity can outvote him but decisions like this are decided by the majority. If the other shareholders want to go through with something, their votes tally up together and so yes, he could be outvoted.
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But that would be all the other major shareholders as well as the 20% of votes on free float on the stock market. The likely hood that would happen is zero, especially if Murdoch made it clear it was against his wishes. I am not sure on this, but I think Murdoch still holds the majority of seats (4??)on the Sky board, so no motion can be put to the Sky board without his explicit consent. No consent, no vote.
A bit of history here....Murdoch of course was the person who set up the original Sky company which he fully controlled. When he then merged it with BSB, Murdoch owned half of the company BSkyB and the former BSB shareholders the other half. But when the merger happened, it was still Murdoch's company by mutual agreement. He was the driving force behind the merged company which gave him control and why most of the BSB people resigned or were sacked at the time.
Technically, the BSB shareholders could have at least blocked Murdoch if they disagreed with him. They owned half of the merged company, but he had de facto control. When one of the large BSB shareholders then sold up and I think those shares were floated on the stock market, this cemented Murdoch's position.
The remaining old BSB shareholder's position has now been weakened further with the purchase of Murdoch fully controlled and owned Sky Italy and Sky Germany. I would expect Murdoch to now bid for the rest of the new Sky and take the company private.
---------- Post added at 00:56 ---------- Previous post was at 00:54 ----------
For those interested in how the shareholdings in media companies can actually work in the real world, should look up about the Murdoch/Malone tussle over News Corp. If you don't know about it, its very interesting and almost ended Murdoch's empire!