Votes at A. & P.

The nation's biggest privately controlled enterprise, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., last week voted to give stockholders outside the Hartford family a vote in how its 4,222 supermarkets will be managed.

Under the plan, approved by the heirs of A. & P.'s Founder George H. Hartford, who own 81% of the stock, all of the company's outstanding stock will be replaced with a single class of voting common stock. (The other 19% of A. & P. stock is publicly held but has had no voting rights.) All common stockholders will receive a 10-for-1 split on their old shares, and three shares of new common stock will be issued for each preferred share. When the new common stock is traded this week for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange (tape symbol: GAP), it is expected to open around $55 a share, since the old stock closed last week on the American Stock Exchange at $536, a rise of $381 in a year.

Also in store for the world's largest grocery is a long look at its management policies. A. & P. heirs, many of whom wish to diversify their holdings, have begun to ponder about a successor to A. & P.'s President Ralph Burger, 69, hand-picked for his job by the late John Hartford and his brother George (who died in 1957, dissolving a family trust and making the stock exchange possible).

The heirs are making other changes. They insisted that Burger add six outside members, including RCA's President John L. Burns and Westinghouse's Chairman Gwilym Price, to the 14-man A. & P. board, though Burger still dominates it. One task: finding a successor to Burger.

At the meeting last week in Manhattan, stockholders took advantage of their new rights to question Burger on A. & P.'s profit margins, heard that they are 1.06% on the dollar, lowest of any top food chain. Grumbled one stockholder: "Isn't that too low?'' Replied Burger: "The company does not believe in profiteering on food. The food business is not a gold mine, and you cannot mine gold from it."

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