Both of you are wrong...
Let's say there are 100 shares, John owns 25 and Mark owns 75.
Stock splits 3:1, there are now 300 shares, John owns 75 and Mark owns 225.
2/3 of 225 is 150, if Mark sold 2/3 of that he would not retain his percentage.
Instead what is happening is a new class of stock will be created that is valued differently and has different voting rights.
Actually, you are wrong. FB is doing a 3-1 stock split, but the newly issued shares don't have voting rights. So, in your case, Mark would own 225 shares, but only 75 of those would have voting rights, and 150 would be non-voting. Thus, he could sell the 150 non-voting shares and still retain the same percentage of voting control despite only having 1/3 of the "income" rights.
"Income" that won't be distributed as dividend until he decides so. When he needs some cash he might prefer to increase the CEO compensation package instead. Why share the profits with the rest of the owners?
1. Legally, Zuckerberg still bears fiduciary responsibility for all shareholders. If he decided to pay himself all the profits as CEO, he would get sued, and lose.
2. Almost all of Zuckerberg's wealth is tied up in his FB shares. If he starts acting in a way such that other investors don't believe he will support their interests, the value of those shares will go down. It would hurt Zuckerberg a lot more than anyone else.
He can't give himself all the profits, but he can easily raise his compensation from $5mn to $50mn without raising an eyebrow. He can also untie his wealth from fb shares while keeping control, as we have seen.
(Actually it seems the $5mn are security expenses and use of corporate planes... It seems he doesn't really get any compensation beyond the $1 salary? Poor boy...)
Well, no each shareholder would get 3 stocks for every one they have now. But each stock would represent 1/3 of the stake in the company it used to. Sorry for a purely negative comment, just wanted to clarify. If you think about it, if every shareholder could sell, make money, and retain the same percentage ownership, someone on the other end of the deal is paying something for nothing.
