Joint-stock company

A public limited company (abbreviation of the German legal form: AG; abbreviations foreign joint stock companies, see below ) is a private association. It is a corporation whose capital is divided into shares. The corporation is probably the most important for international business corporate form.

Nature of the corporation

The corporation is a form of society which has the running of a business for the subject in general. It is considered a typical corporate form of business enterprises with large capital requirements. In the joint-stock company, there is the social capital concept, which aimed at union assets and asset accumulation objectives, most clearly represents the corporation is particularly characterized by the following properties:

• It is a corporation, ie, a membership-based, but as a union independently unincorporated legal entity which is itself the subject of rights and obligations, and sue and be sued.
• She is a corporation, ie based on a specific capital in such a way that the liability of the members, so the shareholders is limited to that capital.
• The share capital is divided into shares. These are rare today securitized into share certificates. Quoted AGs in Germany, for example, their Shares represent often only in a Global Note which will be deposited with Clearstream.
• As a rule, the shares are transferable ( fungible ). However, it does not belong to the necessary essentials of a public company that is traded on a stock exchange.

The joint stock company combines usually a large number of (often passive ) shareholders who have invested their capital in the enterprise to generate income. The shareholders exercise their membership rights in general meetings of shareholders in true by exercising their voting rights. The business of the Company but out of special organs.

Importance

The corporation is an indispensable part of today's business life.

• Public companies can easily obtain by issuing new shares or by the issue of bonds in new capital, as is the case with many other types of companies, especially if the company is publicly traded on the stock exchange. Therefore, the corporation is the corporate form of choice for large companies, but also for companies that grow quickly, such as in new industries.
• The stock of the company is independent of its owners, unlike, say, in a sole proprietorship or general partnership. Thus, the existence of which is more durable.
• Especially for listed companies or employee participation is the possibility that even small investors participate and therefore an interest in the company's success. If unsuccessful, the company is a risk of total loss of the invested capital, but usually not beyond funding obligation.

History

Forerunners of the principle of proportion -sharing can already be found in the days of the Roman Empire, where different traders banded together to pre-finance expensive trading journeys ( capital associations ). These financial covenants existed at that time but only until the end of the trading journey and not go beyond it.

In the 14th and 15th centuries joined in Prussia as well as in today's Styria mined ore and Erzverarbeitungsunternehmer together to fund the costly underground business together long term. So 1415 in Leoben and soon the entire German -speaking cooperatives ( unions ) were founded by shares, called Kuxe financed. This Kuxe were first issued and traded only among industry partners, but later also to industry foreign merchants, nobles and monasteries, and rose and fell in value.

In 1407 was in Genoa St. George Bank ( Banco di San Giorgio ) founded, which is often referred to as the first " real" corporation.

The first organized as a modern joint-stock company was founded in 1602 Dutch East India Company ( Vereenigde Dutch East India Company, abbreviated as VOC or VOC) or company ( Compagnie ).

Germany

Corporate forms of pre-industrial era are usually not accurate to characterize - general craft, publishing and manufacturing can be distinguished. With the onset of industrialization, the capital requirement in the German language area was larger. As a source of money for large investments, therefore, came to the partnership limited by shares and the corporation.

The formation of public limited companies was regulated since 1807 under the current in the Rhineland code de commerce. 1815 took over one of the provisions of the " société anonyme" from French law in the Rhenish Commercial Code. To obtain permission for the establishment of a corporation, it took the proof of charitable status, as in the Kingdom of Prussia.

This was in the 20s and 30s of the 19th century public companies primarily only in road construction, and in the waterway can be found in the insurance industry. Originated in Prussia between 1801 to 1831 just fifteen public companies ( excluding railways and highways ). Before 1843 only 41 public companies had been requested ( excluding railways and highways ) in the Rhine Province.

The joint stock company in various countries

In all German-speaking countries, there is the legal form of a joint stock company (see Aktiengesellschaft ( Germany ), AG ( Austria ), AG ( Switzerland ) ). In Germany, there is also the hybrid of the partnership limited by shares. In the course of further harmonization efforts created an equivalent type of company under European law basis with the European Company ( Societas europaea Latin, SE).

For details of public companies in the various countries see the following country-specific articles: