Description of Registrant's Capital Stock

The following description summarizes certain important terms of the capital stock of Autodesk, Inc. (the “company,” “we,” “us” and “our”). Because it is only a summary, it does not contain all the information that may be important to you. For a complete description of the matters set forth herein, you should refer to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, to our amended and restated bylaws, and to the applicable provisions of Delaware law.

Our authorized capital stock consists of 752,000,000 shares of capital stock, $0.01 par value per share, of which:

 

Our board of directors is authorized, without stockholder approval except as required by the listing standards of Nasdaq, to issue additional shares of our capital stock.

Subject to preferences that may apply to any shares of preferred stock outstanding at the time, the holders of our common stock are entitled to receive dividends out of funds legally available if our board of directors, in its discretion, determines to issue dividends and then only at the times and in the amounts that our board of directors may determine.

Holders of our common stock are entitled to one vote for each share held on all matters submitted to a vote of stockholders. We have not provided for cumulative voting for the election of directors in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation.

Our common stock is not entitled to preemptive rights or other subscription rights and is not subject to conversion, redemption or sinking fund provisions.

If we become subject to a liquidation, dissolution or winding-up, the assets legally available for distribution to our stockholders would be distributable ratably among the holders of our common stock and any participating preferred stock outstanding at that time, subject to prior satisfaction of all outstanding debt and liabilities and the preferential rights of and the payment of liquidation preferences, if any, on any outstanding shares of preferred stock.

All of the outstanding shares of our common stock are fully paid and non-assessable.

Our board of directors is authorized, subject to limitations prescribed by Delaware law, to issue up to 2,000,000 shares of preferred stock in one or more series, to establish from time to time the number of shares to be included in each series and to fix the rights, preferences, privileges, restrictions, designation, powers, and relative participation, optional or other rights, if any, including without limitation dividend rights, dividend rate, conversion rights, voting rights, rights and terms of redemption (including sinking fund provisions), redemption price or prices, and liquidation preferences of the shares of any wholly unissued series and any of its qualifications, limitations or restrictions, in each case without further vote or action by our stockholders. Our board of directors can also increase or decrease the number of shares of any series of preferred stock, but not above the total number of authorized shares of the class or below the number of shares of that series then outstanding, without any further vote or action by our stockholders. Our board of directors may authorize the issuance of preferred stock with voting or conversion rights that could adversely affect the voting power or other rights of the holders of our common stock. The issuance of preferred stock, while providing flexibility in connection with possible acquisitions and other corporate purposes, could, among other things, have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control of our company and might adversely affect the market price of our common stock and the voting and other rights of the holders of our common stock. We have no current plan to issue any shares of preferred stock.

Some provisions of Delaware law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws, which are summarized below, may have the effect of delaying, deferring or discouraging another person from acquiring control of our company. They are also designed, in part, to encourage persons seeking to acquire control of us to negotiate first with our board of directors. We believe that the benefits of increased protection of our potential ability to negotiate with an unfriendly or unsolicited acquirer outweigh the disadvantages of discouraging a proposal to acquire us because negotiation of these proposals could result in an improvement of their terms.

We are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. In general, Section 203 prohibits a public Delaware corporation from engaging in a “business combination” with an “interested stockholder” for a period of three years after the date of the transaction in which the person became an interested stockholder, unless:

 

 

In general, Section 203 defines a “business combination” to include mergers, asset sales and other transactions resulting in financial benefit to a stockholder and an “interested stockholder” as a person who, together with affiliates and associates, owns, or within three years did own, 15% or more of the corporation’s outstanding voting stock. These provisions may have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing changes in control of our company.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws include a number of provisions that could deter hostile takeovers or delay or prevent changes in control of our board of directors or management team, including the following provisions:

Number of Directors; Board of Directors Vacancies.    Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws provide that the authorized number of directors shall be determined from time to time by resolution of the board of directors. Our amended and restated bylaws authorize only our board of directors to fill vacant directorships, including newly created seats. These provisions would prevent a stockholder from increasing the size of our board of directors and then gaining control of our board of directors by filling the resulting vacancies with its own nominees. This will make it more difficult to change the composition of our board of directors and will promote continuity of management.

Advance Notice Requirements for Stockholder Proposals and Director Nominations.    Our amended and restated bylaws provide advance notice procedures for stockholders seeking to bring business before our annual meeting of stockholders or to nominate candidates for election as directors at our annual meeting of stockholders. Our amended and restated bylaws also specify certain requirements regarding the form and content of a stockholder’s notice. These provisions might preclude our stockholders from bringing matters before our annual meeting of stockholders or from making nominations for directors at our annual meeting of stockholders if the proper procedures are not followed. We expect that these provisions may also discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of our company.

 

No Cumulative Voting.    The Delaware General Corporation Law provides that stockholders are not entitled to cumulate votes in the election of directors unless a corporation’s certificate of incorporation provides otherwise. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation does not provide for cumulative voting.

Issuance of Undesignated Preferred Stock.    Our board of directors has the authority, without further action by our stockholders, to issue up to 2,000,000 shares of undesignated preferred stock with rights and preferences, including voting rights, designated from time to time by our board of directors. The existence of authorized but unissued shares of preferred stock would enable our board of directors to render more difficult or to discourage an attempt to obtain control of us by means of a merger, tender offer, proxy contest or other means.

Computershare Investor Services LLC is the transfer agent and registrar for our common stock. The transfer agent and registrar’s address is 250 Royall Street, Canton, Massachusetts 02021.

Our common stock is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol “ADSK”.