You want a seat on the board of directors of Four Keys, Inc. The company has 225,000 shares of stock outstanding and the stock sells for \( \$ 54 \) per share, There are currently 4 seats up for election. The company uses straight voting. How many shares do you need to guarantee that you will be elected to the board? a. 101,251 shares b. 112,501 shares e. 56,250 shares d. 45,001 shares e. 78,751 shares

To determine how many shares you need to guarantee a seat on the board of directors of Four Keys, Inc., we need to consider the voting system in place, which is straight voting. In straight voting, each shareholder votes for one candidate per share they own, and the candidates with the most votes win. ### Step 1: Calculate the total number of votes needed to guarantee a seat Since there are 4 seats available, to guarantee that you secure one of those seats, you need to have more votes than half of the total votes cast for the available seats. ### Step 2: Calculate the total number of shares The total number of shares outstanding is 225,000. ### Step 3: Calculate the number of votes needed To guarantee a seat, you need to have more than a quarter of the total votes, since there are 4 seats. This can be calculated as follows: \[ \text{Votes needed} = \left(\frac{\text{Total shares}}{4}\right) + 1 \] ### Step 4: Substitute the known values Substituting the total shares into the equation: \[ \text{Votes needed} = \left(\frac{225,000}{4}\right) + 1 \] ### Step 5: Perform the calculation Calculating the number of votes needed: \[ \text{Votes needed} = 56,250 + 1 = 56,251 \] ### Conclusion To guarantee that you will be elected to the board, you need to own at least 56,251 shares. However, since the options provided do not include 56,251, the closest option that guarantees a seat is: **c. 56,250 shares** This means that with 56,250 shares, you would not guarantee a seat, but with 56,251 shares, you would. Therefore, the answer is **56,250 shares** as the closest option.