Boston, MA 10/09/2013 (wallstreetpr) – A few investors are pressing the board to force Bill Gates, one of the co-founder of the company to step down as the chairman of the company. The CEO, Steve Ballmer has often been under pressure as he has been urged to take the right actions to improve the performance of the company and even rev up the share price. However it is the first instance when shareholders have targeted the popular figure Gates.
When the representative of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was contacted to comment on this situation, they declined to put forth any formal comment. There has been no indication that infers that the board would follow the advice of the three investors who jointly hold 5% stock of the company. The identity of who the three investors are has been kept as private as no information was disclosed to the media.
Gates owns 4.5% of the stock and is till date the largest individual shareholder in this firm valued at $277 billion. As per the three investors, they are of the opinion that Gates as a chairman is blocking the implementation of new radical ideas and strategies that can benefit the firm in new ways. They are of the opinion that even a chief executive will fail to make substantial changes as long as Gates remain the chairman of the company. They are also skeptical about the influential role of Gates in the committee that is working to find a successor of Ballmer.
Although, Gates is the co founder and was one of the key figures at Microsoft, he handed the role of the CEO to Ballmer back in 2000 as it helped him concentrate more on this $38 billion worth Bill and Melinda gates foundation. He spends major time working for this foundation and there are plans that indicate that he may leave all his financial stakes in Microsoft by 2018.
