Air Canada is a Canadian based airline with a multiple class share structure. This post briefly describes Air Canada’s share structure.
Generally, I avoid investing in companies with multiple class voting shares. I think having some shareholders subordinate to others is poor corporate governance and doesn’t promote the best business outcomes (this is not a fact, just my opinion 🙂
To find the share structure of any Canadian public company, navigate to sedar.com and find the company’s “Management Information Circular”, then find the section usually entitled “Principal Shareholders”. This section will list the principal shareholders and any shareholder with more than 10% ownership of any share class.
In the case of Air Canada, they have two classes of shares (A & B) both have votes but only Canadians can hold the B shares traded on the TSX symbol AC. There are a bunch of voting rights issues associated with the share classes to prevent foreign takeover of Air Canada. Otherwise, the two share classes have the same rights to assets/dividends.
