Chapter 4 - The Founder Continuity Option
Twenty-two years earlier, Victor reorganized Maddox Consolidated.
Instead of allowing leadership to fragment automatically when he died or retired, the board created something called the:
Founder Continuity Option.
Ugly name.
Important mechanism.
Victor retained a block of super-voting founder shares.
Those shares did not simply pass permanently to whoever received the most money in his will.
When Victor stopped serving as executive chairman, a qualified family successor could exercise an option to purchase a portion of those voting shares at a formula price.
The successor needed:
Board approval.
Specified business experience.
No disqualifying criminal conviction.
Financial capacity.
A signed succession designation.
If no family member qualified:
An independent management trust temporarily held voting authority until the board approved another structure.
It was not a crown.
Not a birthright.
Not ordinary inheritance.
It was corporate governance.
When I was thirty-one, Victor designated me primary successor.
May you like
Nobody disputed that.
The fight was about what happened after me.
