The Problem of Three In the Voting of Public Company Shares
Three years ago, Professor John Coates of Harvard Law School, currently on leave and serving as general counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), wrote an extremely insightful article, “The Future of Corporate Governance Part I: The Problem of Twelve.” His thesis was that the growth of index funds was leading to such a concentration of shareholder voting power that “in the near future roughly twelve individuals will have practical power over the majority of U.S. public companies.”
