Both public companies and private corporation have shareholders.
But only for companies participating in the equity ownership, right? I’m not fully versed with that, so need to ask here. I don’t know how this works with Gabe and Valve. I think the important detail here is, that Valve is not publicly traded and can decide who buys shares from their company and could reject any money. I don’t think this is possible with publicly traded companies, right?
Ownership of companies via shares is only for LLCs (which is a possibility but in practice uncommon) and Corporations and both Sole Proprietorships and Partnerships do not have shares.
That said, it is indeed possible for a company to have ownership by shares and not be publicly traded (i.e. not in the stock market) so for example a corporation with no traded shares would be a private corporation.~
This is what I found out for the US by searching for “types of companies” and “LLC shares”.
The countries I lived in and owned companies in Europe have similar things but with different names (for example what a Partnership in the US is roughly what’s called a “Society by quotas” in Portugal and is actually the most common kind of company).
In my experience people that never had their own registered business don’t usually know any of this because they have no need to look into it.
If they are shareholders, they hold at least one share. Every one of them. There’s no limit on number of shareholders or shares held. But those shares are not publicly traded.
That’s only a (USA) reporting limit. A private company can still have more than 2000 shareholders, but it must then publicly report its finances like a public company would.
That’s a new one for me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder
But only for companies participating in the equity ownership, right? I’m not fully versed with that, so need to ask here. I don’t know how this works with Gabe and Valve. I think the important detail here is, that Valve is not publicly traded and can decide who buys shares from their company and could reject any money. I don’t think this is possible with publicly traded companies, right?
Ownership of companies via shares is only for LLCs (which is a possibility but in practice uncommon) and Corporations and both Sole Proprietorships and Partnerships do not have shares.
That said, it is indeed possible for a company to have ownership by shares and not be publicly traded (i.e. not in the stock market) so for example a corporation with no traded shares would be a private corporation.~
This is what I found out for the US by searching for “types of companies” and “LLC shares”.
The countries I lived in and owned companies in Europe have similar things but with different names (for example what a Partnership in the US is roughly what’s called a “Society by quotas” in Portugal and is actually the most common kind of company).
In my experience people that never had their own registered business don’t usually know any of this because they have no need to look into it.
Yeah, often times if a company needs a loan then they open up a stake.
i think in private corporations only a very limited amount of shareholders can have shares
If they are shareholders, they hold at least one share. Every one of them. There’s no limit on number of shareholders or shares held. But those shares are not publicly traded.
There are limits on shareholders in private companies.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/5/500-shareholder-threshold.asp
Looks like the number is 2000, but that excludes employees. It used to be 500.
That’s only a (USA) reporting limit. A private company can still have more than 2000 shareholders, but it must then publicly report its finances like a public company would.
Fair… but why would any private company do that without going public? Do any?
When you and your 2000 co-founders want to start a company? Then its 2001 shares.
Reminds me of this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SYIksrZeu4
He should gone ahead and taken out billions in loans against his company and got some cash in hand tax free.