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As far as I know, some legal definitions of shareholder majority are expressed in terms of "50% of the shares plus 1 share". Why not simply "more than 50%" or perhaps "an amount of full shares that exceed 50%"?

In an extreme example, let's say a company only issued five shares and these shares are only traded as one piece (no fractional shares). Then 50% of five is two and a half, plus one is three and a half, but with only full shares available I need four shares to achieve that. So in this case I need to actually own 80% when one share less would already be 60%. Of course this effect gets smaller the larger the total number of shares is, but the question remains: What is the rationale behind this strange regulation and formulation?

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    Could you back up your claim that this is a legal definition of "shareholder majority"? Can you link an authoritative source that uses that definition?
    – Daniel
    Commented May 12, 2020 at 22:24

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With the typical large company, one share over 50% would result in something like 50.00000001%, which - depending on the tool / website used - could be displayed / seen rounded to 50%.

To avoid these issues, 50% plus one share is used.

Sure 'greater than 50%' is mathematically the same, but legalese has no relation to math, and often continues to use obscure historical wording, because this is 'how it was always done', and nobody wants to take the risk to reword / modernize anything, and make a stupid error (or look unprofessional).

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    "Sure 'greater than 50%' is mathematically the same," I think the questions point is that this is only true if there are an even number of shares. Otherwise 50%+1 and >50% are actually two unique values mathematically.
    – NPSF3000
    Commented May 12, 2020 at 23:58
  • "50% of the shares plus 1 share" is actually far worse from a legal interpretation perspective, than relying on the mathematical definition (which may confuse lawyers but still is unambiguous and the mathematical definition will eventually prevail although it may have to be explained any number of times first). Specifically, "50% of the shares plus 1 share" could be (50% of the shares) plus 1 share but it could also be 50% of (the shares plus 1 share). In OP's example, the first results in needing 4 out of 5 shares, while the second results in needing 3 out of 5.
    – Ben Voigt
    Commented May 13, 2020 at 15:32

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