- 26 - adamantly that Clara made her own decisions and that her advisers were independent of Max and his advisers.8 While Mr. Smith also testified cursorily that Max voted Clara's shares by proxy, we give this testimony no weight. But for the testimony of a person who is neither a director nor shareholder of Seminole to the effect that Max voted Clara's shares by proxy, we find nothing in the record to support a finding that Max held a proxy to vote Clara's shares. Not to mention that even if he had voted her shares by proxy on previous occasions, proxies are generally revocable and of limited duration so as to deprive the holder of any control over the underlying shares. See, e.g., Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 18, sec. 1057 (West 1986). Nor do we agree with Mr. Tack that each share of the estate's stock necessarily equaled the per-share value of the stock of any other shareholder. As we understand Mr. Tack's analysis, shares of stock have one of two values. They have one value, Mr. Tack states, if they represent a controlling interest in that the shareholder has the "ability to change corporate bylaws, determine dividend policies, redeploy corporate assets, change the company's capital structure, effect a sale or other change in the company's ownership structure, make personnel changes, and otherwise influence the operations and financial structure of the company." They have a second value, Mr. Tack 8 We also are unpersuaded that Clara Weitzenhoffer had any obligation as of the applicable valuation date to leave her shares to her son Max.Page: Previous 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Next
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