Stats › Listings, IPOs and corporate actions › Dual class shares
Dual class share structures
When you buy a share you normally get two things: a slice of the money and a vote on how the company is run. A dual class structure separates those. The shares sold to the public get one vote each, or none at all, and the founders hold a class carrying ten or more votes apiece. You still own the economics. You just don't get much say.
In 1980 that arrangement covered 1.4% of US IPOs. In 2025 it covered 41.1%. This page tracks that shift, sets out how the three big index providers each answered the same question differently and still disagree, and goes through the research on what the structure is actually worth, which turns out to depend heavily on how old the company is. There's also a section on sunset clauses, the provisions that convert everything back to one share one vote after a set number of years, and how often they're real.
I built this page because dual class is one of those topics where people arrive with a strong opinion already formed, in either direction, and the evidence doesn't support either extreme. Five sources sit at the bottom and they don't all agree with each other. Where two of them count the same thing differently, I've kept both figures and explained the difference in the notes rather than picking the one that reads better. Go and check them.
41.1% of US initial public offerings in 2025 had dual class share structures, the highest on record and up from 1.4% in 1980. The index providers split three ways on it. S&P Dow Jones Indices barred new multi class companies from its US indices in 2017 and reversed that policy in April 2023. FTSE Russell kept its rule and still requires more than 5% of voting rights in free float hands. MSCI declined to act at all. The research is consistent on the shape: dual class firms IPO at roughly a 13% valuation premium which crosses into a discount after about six to nine years.
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