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Encyclopedia > Privately held company

The term privately held company refers to ownership of a business company in two different ways—first, referring to ownership by non-governmental organizations; and second, referring to ownership of the company's stock by a relatively small number of holders who do not trade the stock publicly. Because of these two different meanings, the use of the term should normally be avoided unless the context makes clear which definition is intended. The term company may refer to a separate legal entity, as in English law, or may simply refer to a business, as is the common use in the United States. ...

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State ownership vs. private ownership

In the broadest sense, the term privately held company refers to any business not owned by the state. This usage is often found in former Communist countries to differentiate from former state-owned enterprises, but it may be used anywhere when contrasting to a state-owned company. This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ...


In the United States, the term privately held company is more often used to describe for-profit enterprises whose shares are not traded on the stock market.


Ownership of stock

In countries with public trading markets, a privately held business company is generally taken to mean one whose ownership shares or interests are not publicly traded. Often, privately held companies are owned by the company founders and/or their families and heirs or by a small group of investors. Sometimes employees also hold shares of private companies. Most small businesses are privately held. In the United States a few notable large corporations, such as Koch Industries, HEB, Cargill, Swagelok, Kohler, CompUSA, Mars, and Bechtel are privately held, as are large law firms See stock (disambiguation) for other meanings of the term stock A stock, also referred to as a share, is commonly a share of ownership in a corporation. ... A public company usually refers to a company which is permitted to offer its securites (i. ... Corporate redirects here. ... Koch Industries, Inc. ... H-E-B or H.E. Butt Grocery Company is a Texas grocer with over 300 stores and 56,000 employees. ... Cargill, Incorporated is a privately held, multinational corporation, and is based in the state of Minnesota in the United States. ... Swagelok is a privately held company headquartered in Solon, Ohio and founded in 1947 by Fred A. Lennon. ... The Kohler Company is a manufacturing company in Kohler, Wisconsin best known for its plumbing products. ... CompUSA, Inc. ... Mars, Incorporated is a world-wide manufacturer of confectionery, pet food and other food products with $18 billion (USD) in annual sales (2005). ... Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel Group) is the largest engineering company in the United States, ranking as the 6th-largest privately owned company in the U.S. With headquarters in San Francisco, Bechtel had 40,000 employees as of 2005 working on projects in nearly 50 countries with $18. ... A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. ...


Form of organization

Private companies may be called corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, sole proprietorships, business trusts, or other names, depending on where and how they are organized. Different jurisdictions have varying laws that call business entities by different names. Each of these categories may have additional requirements and restrictions that may impact income tax liabilities, governmental obligations, employee relations, marketing opportunities and other business decisions. A Limited liability company (denoted by L.L.C. or LLC) is a type of legal entity which has only relatively recently been made possible to establish in the United States and many other, mainly anglophone, countries. ... In the common law, a partnership is a type of business entity in which partners share with each other the profits or losses of the business undertaking in which they have all invested. ... A sole proprietorship, or simply proprietorship, is a type of business entity which legally has no separate existence from its owner. ... The term jurisdiction has more than one sense. ...


Reporting obligations and restrictions

Privately held companies generally have fewer or lesser reporting requirements for transparency, via annual reports, etc. than do publicly traded companies. For example, Part 2E of the Australian Corporations Act 2001 requires that public companies file certain documents relating to their annual general meeting with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Private companies also sometimes have restrictions on how many shareholders they may have. For example, section 113 of the Corporations Act 2001 limits a private company to fifty non-employee shareholders. Another example is the US Securities Exchange Act, section 12(g), which limits a private company, generally, to fewer than 500 shareholders, and the US Investment Company Act of 1940, which requires registration of investment companies that have more than 100 holders. In the physical sciences, specifically in optics, a transparent physical object is one that can be seen through. ... The Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), sometimes referred to just as the Corporations Act (or informally as the Corps Act), is an act of the Commonwealth of Australia that sets out the laws dealing with business entities in Australia at federal and interstate level. ... An Annual General Meeting, commonly abbreviated as AGM, also known as the annual meeting, is a meeting that official bodies and associations involving the public are often required by law (In what country?) to hold. ... The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent Australian government body that acts as Australias corporate regulator. ... A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or company (including a corporation), that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. ...


See also

Private equity is a broad term that refers to any type of equity investment in an asset in which the equity is not freely tradable on a public stock market. ...

External links


  Results from FactBites:
 
How to Manage the Corporate Governance Risks of Large, Privately Held Corporations (1211 words)
Private companies now should begin to review and make changes in their corporate governance structure and practices, their system of internal controls, their approach to financial reporting and their corporate culture regarding appropriate behavior.
Private companies should consider accompanying their financial statements with this type of a discussion.
Large, privately held companies should undertake to have their directors, officers and employees become familiar with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements pertaining to lawyer reporting of misconduct (and the reasons behind them) and to modify their internal procedures to accommodate these new standards.
  More results at FactBites »

 

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