Securities of A Public Company
Usually, the securities of a publicly traded company are owned by many investors while the shares of a privately held company are owned by relatively few shareholders. A company with many shareholders is not necessarily a publicly traded company. In the United States, in some instances, companies with over 500 shareholders may be required to report under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; companies that report under the 1934 Act are generally deemed public companies. The first company to issue shares is generally held to be the Dutch East India Company in 1601, but quasi-corporate entities, often trading or shipping concerns, are known to have existed as far back as Roman times.
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Famous quotes containing the words public and/or company:
“You know, Mr. Secretary, I have found out in the course of a long public life that the things I did not say never hurt me.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)