They also consider the tools that minority investors have at their disposal in each country to check majorities' power, such as the ease of electing directors and the proportion of votes needed to call a special shareholders meeting.
The money will be used to fund special payments to shareholders who, after years of seeing their shares rise in value, have become frustrated in recent months.
Even with the payout, Microsoft has piled up a huge cash position in recent years, and thus could easily finance a large acquisition or, should the mood strike its board, lay another special dividend on shareholders or simply increase its payout.
More importantly in our mind, Freeport is a company that has tremendous free cash flow and has been very active in rewarding shareholders through special dividends in addition to a regular dividend.
From high-ranking corporate executives and bankers, you still hear talk of the special Japanese model, whereby shareholders are only one interest and rough "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism is antithetical.
Sitting on a huge cash hoard, it will increase its meager 8-cent quarterly dividend and also give shareholders another whopping special payout, as it did in December 2004.
"The changes announced by the Morgan Stanley Board are deficient as they fail to allow shareholders to call a special meeting, " the group of eight said in a statement Sunday night.
In 2012, many companies globally shied away from deal making, opting instead to focus on strengthening their balance sheets and returning capital to shareholders in the form of special dividends and stock buybacks.
These special interest groups lobby to make it harder for shareholders to unseat crony boards and under-performing CEOs.
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Several companies have caught on the special dividend craze, deciding to return money to shareholders ahead of what could end up being a terrible fiscal cliff outcome.
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Most companies use share buybacks or pay special dividends on their common stock to return excess cash to shareholders.
The only thing that matters now about Clearwire is who is going to buy it or whether the Special Committee willl actually do anything to protect the interests of minority shareholders.
In theory, the presence of private shareholders in DB ML should reduce its ability to win special treatment from DB Netz, though Mr Mehdorn will, bizarrely, continue to head both DB and DB ML. The privatisation represents a step towards the British model, in which private firms run trains on a state-owned network.
Several companies have incurred in buybacks and special dividends over the past few weeks in order to return money to shareholders ahead of a possible tax hike connected to the fiscal cliff.
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About 800 directors last year received "no" votes that topped 30% of the votes cast, a high-enough percentage that small shareholders could change the outcome, according to Patrick McGurn, special counsel at RiskMetrics Group.
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Many shareholders are clamoring for the company to declare a fatter dividend or a special one to ease some of their pain.
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On a different front, Davis Advisors, the sponsor of Selected American and Selected Special Shares, two celebrated no-loads, also recently acted on behalf of shareholders.
In the meantime, the Special Committee at Clearwire has apparently done NOTHING to defend the rights of the minority shareholders of Clearwire in getting fair or anything approaching fair value for their shares.
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In a new SEC filing dated February 1, Clearwire has broken its recent silence and implies that maybe the Special Committee is finally doing its stated job and representing the true interests of minority shareholders.
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Having failed to do so he reversed course in 2008 and came up with a clever scheme in which he, along with China Netcom, PCCW's second-largest shareholder, would take the company private, buying out the other shareholders for slightly less than he would receive from the company in a special dividend issued after the deal's completion.
While the number of special dividends has increased, fears that higher tax rates will fundamentally change how companies will deploy capital to shareholders still appear to be overblown.
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