In April Morgan Stanley and other disaffected investors, representing 28% of the shares in the New York Times Company, ostentatiously withheld their votes at the annual meeting, in protest at the falling share price of the paper under the control of the Ochs-Sulzberger family.
The creation of Class B super-voting shares allowed the Sulzberger-Ochs family to maintain an all-but-unchallengeable control of the company while still allowing it to tap the public markets for capital it needed for expansion.
In 1991 the board of directors delayed by three months a decision by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the 65-year-old chairman and CEO, to promote his son, Arthur Jr.