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Microsoft shareholders strongly opposed a recent proposal to invest part of the company’s assets in Bitcoin (BTC).
As many as 5.148 billion votes were against the proposal, with only 28.234 million Microsoft shareholders voting in favor, according to the annual Microsoft Investor Relations report. The reported data shows that only 0.55% of the total votes favored the investment.
Last month, a Microsoft document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that the company planned to assess investing in Bitcoin and vote on the issue during a meeting. The board’s recommendation to vote against the proposal had already set the tone.
The results follow late November reports that Michael Saylor — the chairman of top corporate Bitcoin holder MicroStrategy — was going to pitch investing in Bitcoin to the Microsoft board of directors. He explained that an activist arranged the meeting:
“The activist that put that proposal together contacted me to present to the board, and I agreed to provide a three-minute presentation — that’s all you’re allowed — and I’m going to present it to the board of directors.”
The details
The vote was the results of the National Centre for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) pushing for the proposal, noting that MicroStrategy outperformed Microsoft by over 300% with its Bitcoin accumulation strategy. The NCPPR highlighted that this is true despite MicroStrategy doing a fraction of the business” of Microsoft.
Early November reports by industry media suggested that Microsoft could risk being sued by shareholders if it decides not to invest in Bitcoin and the price increases. Saylor suggested that more companies should consider investing in Bitcoin:
“I think it’s not a bad idea to put it on the agenda of every company. It ought to be put on the agenda of Berkshire Hathaway and Apple and Google and Meta because they all have huge hordes of cash, and they’re all burning shareholder value. […] It would be a lot more stable stock and a much less risky stock if half of the enterprise value of the stock was based upon tangible assets or property like Bitcoin.”
