D.G.E. Investments — The Irrevocable Proxy Over Tencent's Spotify Shares
mechanism
A Swedish founder casts the votes on Tencent's Spotify shares.
Who they are
D.G.E. Investments, a Cyprus company Ek owns through a second Cyprus company[1].
What they do
It holds a permanent right to vote shares it doesn't own.
How it works
Four Tencent entities hold 16.6 million Spotify shares — 8.1%. The filing says Ek votes all of them through an irrevocable proxy held by D.G.E. Investments. So his headline 13.9% is a voting number: strip out Tencent's shares and what's actually his is 12 million, or 5.83%[1].
Why it matters
The gap between what someone votes and what someone owns is the whole point of this arrangement. No claim here about why it was set up.
The engine's record — word for word
The instrument by which a Chinese-state-linked shareholding is voted by a Swedish founder. Per the FY2025 Form 20-F footnote, read this session: D.G.E. Investments Limited holds 11,993,298 ordinary shares; Daniel Ek is sole shareholder of D.G.E. Holding Limited, which is sole shareholder of D.G.E. Investments. Ek 'exercises voting power over the ordinary shares held of record by TME Hong Kong, Image Frame, Tencent Mobility Limited, and Distribution Pool Limited through his indirect ownership of D.G.E. Investments, which holds an irrevocable proxy with regard to these ordinary shares'[1]. Those four Tencent entities hold 4,276,200 + 9,076,240 + 3,227,920 + 51,609 = 16,631,969 shares, 8.1% of ordinary shares, per the same footnote. Registered address of D.G.E. Holding: 1 Alexandrou Panagouli, Office 2B, Novel Tower, 6057 Larnaca, Cyprus, per the same footnote. ARITHMETIC CONSEQUENCE, stated as arithmetic: Ek's 28,625,267 beneficially-owned shares minus the 16,631,969 he votes but does not own leaves 11,993,298 — 5.83% of the 205,832,527 outstanding. The headline 13.9% figure is a voting aggregate, not an economic stake. Held; no claim is made about what the proxy was arranged for.
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