Here's an interesting tidbit from Apple's preliminary proxy statement: Apple is asking shareholders, for the first time, to assign a value to its shares. What? Don't investors assign a value to Apple's shares every second it trades? Well, yes and no. Apple shares today have no par value—an archaic accounting concept that assigns a nominal value to shares. It dates back to the old days when stock was issued on paper certificates, on which the par value would be printed. In theory, in some circumstances, shareholders could trade in the certificate and ask the company to redeem their shares for that value. To avoid creating a liability, companies either set their shares' par value very low, or assign no par value, if that's allowed in their jurisdiction. Apple was set up decades ago in California, which allows companies to assign no par value to their shares. But that's creating legal and accounting headaches for the company in areas where the par value figures into local laws...
