Articles of association
The company's constitutive document: it names the classes of shares, the rights attached to them, how a meeting is convened and how the preferred dividend is worked out.
How to read the number
The dividend formula for preferred shares, the moment those shares acquire a vote and the list of matters needing a supermajority are set here rather than by default in statute. Two issuers with seemingly identical securities can therefore pay on entirely different rules.
When the metric lies
The articles are amended by a shareholder vote. A rule that looks permanent lasts exactly until the meeting that rewrites it.
Also known as: company charter