Originally Posted by
brunos
Hi Richelieu. Directors are individuals and vote as they wish. Each one has one vote whoever he/she "represents" or how he/she was appointed to the board. They do not vote with a proportion of "their" shares.
I think you've misinterpreted or misrepresented what
Richelieu is saying.
No one votes "with a proportion of their shares" - if by this you mean someone saying "well, 82% of the shares I represent want to say YES, and 18% of the shares I represent want to say NO".
But the size of the shareholding has to be factored in. If the French government, who apparently own 15.9% of the company, were to abstain, rather than being interpreted as "1 vote - an abstention", it has instead to be weighted as a vote representing fully 15.9% of the issued shares.
So anyone who owns 50.1% or more of a company can always get their way - their single vote will always outrank the (potentially thousands of) other smaller shareholders' votes, who at most only carry a combined weight of 49.9%.