Company: NGVC
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001437749-25-037556
Chunk: 38

Company: Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 38
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 by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.

Several provisions of our certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws could make it difficult for our stockholders to change the composition of our Board, preventing them from changing the composition of management. In addition, the same provisions may discourage, delay or prevent a merger or acquisition that our stockholders may consider favorable.

These provisions include:

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			a staggered, or classified, Board;

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			authorizing our Board to issue “blank check” preferred stock without stockholder approval;

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			prohibiting cumulative voting in the election of directors;

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			limiting the persons who may call special meetings of stockholders;

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			prohibiting stockholders from acting by written consent after the Isely family ceases to own more than 50% of the total voting power of our shares; and

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			establishing advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our Board or for proposing matters that can be acted on by stockholders at stockholder meetings.

These anti-takeover provisions could substantially impede the ability of our common stockholders to benefit from a change in control and, as a result, could materially adversely affect the market price of our common stock and our stockholders’ ability to realize any potential change-in-control premium.

We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the NYSE Listed Company Manual, and, as a result, rely on exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements that provide protection to stockholders of other companies.

The Isely family, or entities controlled by the Isely family, own more than 50% of the total voting power of our common shares for the election of directors, and therefore, we are considered a “controlled company” under the corporate governance standards set forth in the NYSE Listed Company Manual. As a “controlled company,” certain exemptions under NYSE standards free us from the obligation to comply with certain corporate governance requirements of the NYSE, including the requirements:

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			that a majority of our Board consists of “independent directors,” as defined under the rules of the NYSE;

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			that our director nominees be selected, or recommended for our Board’s selection, either: (i) by a majority of independent directors in a vote by independent directors, pursuant to a nominations process adopted by a Board resolution or (ii) by a nominating and governance committee composed solely of