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
Also known as: company charter