Since early 2016, Under Armour started trading three different classes of shares differing only in voting rights. Class A share (NYSE: UAA) has one vote per share, Class B share (NYSE: UA-B) has 10 votes per share, and Class C class share (NYSE: UA-C) (NYSE:UA) has no voting right.
The official justification for a dual-class share structure is "to ensure the long-term company growth based on the vision of the founder not to be affected by the market's short-term earnings driven pressure." It is often industry specific, more in communication, technology, special retail, and in IPOs, as these companies require visionary founders, including News Corp. (NYSE: NWSA), The New York Times (NYSE: NYT), and The Washington Post. You may remember the founding families of these companies, the Murdochs, Sulzbergers, and Grahams who use dual class structures to keep control within their families. Other examples include Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin (NASDAQ: GOOG), Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (NASDAQ: FB), and Starbucks' Gordon Bowker, Zev Siegl, and Jerry Baldwin (NYSE: SBUX).
