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CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is officially top dog at DreamWorks Animation with 61% of voting control after his former DreamWorks partner David Geffen relinquished all super-voting stock.
The company said in an SEC filing Tuesday that Geffen has converted 3 million shares of the super voting Class B stock into an equivalent number of less potent Class A shares issued by DreamWorks Animation. Media companies, including Viacom, News Corp. and others, often use two classes of stock that give enhanced voting power and de facto control to a certain group of shareholders, usually founders and owners, and their close allies. The move was voluntary. “Upon such conversion, the Geffen Entities ceased to own any shares of Class B Common Stock,” the filing said. DWA didn’t receive any payment for the Class A shares it issued. DWA said it now has a total of 76.5 million shares of Class A common stock outstanding, and 7.8 million shares of Class B. All of the B shares, repping approximately 61% of the company’s total voting power, are held by Katzenberg and entities controlled by him.
