Answer:
a. What is the significance of voting rights to the ordinary shareholders? What is a proxy? Why do proxy fights occur?
Voting rights, to ordinary shareholders, is the upside of holding common stock, with the downside being that they have less preference of payment than bondholders, and preferred stock holders.
A proxy is a group of shareholder activists who attempt at enacting a particular change within the company. Proxy fights occur because proxies often meet resistance from the firm's current board.
b. Briefly explain the factors that influence the planning of the capital structure in practice.
There are many factors that influence the planning of the capital structure. For example, if interest rates are low, the board may plan for more debt and less equity, while the opposite would occur if interest rates are high.
In general terms, boards and managers tend to like debt because they represent the chance of leveraging the company, and a high leverage can increase returns to shareholders by a large margin if the economic performance of the firm is good.
c. ‘Bonus shares represent simply a division of corporate pie into a large number of pieces.’
Bonus shares are stock issued in place of dividends. In other words, when profits are distributed, stockholders get even more stock, instead of cash. Bonus shares, therefore, increase the amount of the firm's stock by the value of current profit, slicing the corporate pie into a larger number of pieces.
