Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
voting trust

voting trust

7.1
An agreement where shareholders give their right to vote to other people but keep their shares
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : fideicomiso de voto
  • After conducting a shareholder meeting, the company established a voting trust to manage the votes of minority shareholders.

Examples

  • The Hon. W.D. Ross and Major A.P. Holt, who had resigned when he did, returned to the board, but the voting trust remained in place (it was impossible to dissolve the trust without the consent of all the trustees).

    Academic text (2006)

  • In order to maintain control over the company, the investors formed a voting trust that would oversee all shareholder votes.

  • The shareholders decided to transfer their voting rights to a voting trust to streamline decision-making.

How Delegated

voting trust
  • Specialized
7.1
proxy
  • Specialized
4 6.3
voting stock
  • Specialized
1 6.4

Surface Forms

voting trust singular
voting trusts plural

Morphology

voting + trust

The noun is compositionally built: 'voting' specifies the object of the 'trust' (a legal arrangement), so a learner who knows 'voting' (voting rights) and 'trust' (a legal holding arrangement) can infer it denotes a trust concerning voting rights. It is a somewhat technical/legal term but its meaning is directly derivable from the constituents and thus predictable for learners familiar with the legal sense of 'trust'.

Etymology

Voting trust comes from the simple image of handing your voting 'power' to someone you trust so they can vote for your group. So it means giving your 'vote' to trustees while you still keep ownership of your shares.