Controlling interest in a corporation means to have control of a large enough block of voting stock shares in a company such that no one stock holder or coalition of stock holders can successfully oppose a motion. In theory this could mean that controlling interest would be 33.4% or 50% of the voting shares plus one.
In practice, though, controlling interest can be far less than that, as it is rare that 100% of company voting shareholders actively vote. While most small corporations do not have a 2/3 vote requirement, in the opposite, most large companies especially Delaware corporations, do have a 2/3 vote requirement.
A company that requires a 2/3 super-majority of shares to vote in favor of a motion can grant, in effect, veto power to a minority shareholder or block of shareholders that own more than 1/3 of the shares. Thus in some cases a single entity can essentially maintain control with only 33.4% of the outstanding shares. Ford Motor Company's former 33.9% ownership of Mazda North American Operations is an example of a controlling interest with minority shareholding that was granted by Mazda.
Famous quotes containing the words controlling and/or interest:
“In controlling men:
If at first you don’t succeed,
Why, cry, cry, again.”
—Unknown. A Maxim Revised (l. 3–4)
“There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean “the foolish face of praise,” the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)