“authorized as incorporated”?

Question

1 As a result of four two-for-one stock splits on the Common Stock effective October 20, 1989, May 15, 1992, August 22, 1997 and May 21, 2004, the number of shares of Series A ESOP Convertible Class A Preferred Stock authorized as incorporated automatically increased to 145,454,544 in accordance with the terms of paragraph 9(A)(1) of Appendix A. (This footnote is not a part of the Company's Amended Articles of Incorporation, but is included to provide up-to-date information on the status of Series A ESOP Convertible Class A Preferred Stock.)

This is a footnote from the P&G Articles of Incorporation (https://za.pg.com/who-we-are/structure-governance/corporate-governance/articles-incorporation).

What does 'authorized as incorporated' mean here?

Answer 1

It means that the number of shares under discussion were authorized as incorporated. If you don't understand those words, you should really skip asking Law and English Language and direct your questions to the English learners' SE.

That said, if you were confused by which sense of as was meant, they're using it to mean “in accordance with:” because of these stock splits, the number of shares of this series approved by the company in accordance with its articles of incorporation grew to 145-odd million by 2004.