... In the eyes of law, a company itself is an "entity" on its own.
It does not have a owner. There is no single owner for a company. If there is no owner of a company, we have some questions.
1. Who are they started the company and put money and their efforts?
They are
Promoter of the company.
To have a clear understanding, let us consider a case.
There are three persons A, B and C.
A has Rs10 lack
B has a profitable business idea or a technology
C has nothing but he is a well-wisher both A and C
Now C approached B and suggested him to start a company. B hesitates as he lacks funds to start a business. C asks him to write a business proposal that explains the business concept, profitability etc.,
C takes the proposal to B, who owns fund but does not know how to start a business
C explains and convince B to start a company with A as A has business skill and B has capital. B is happy now and thanked C for his effort. C introduces A to B.
When A and B decides to start a company, they both ask C to stay with them and to guide them in business considering him as well-wisher of the business.C accepts that.
Now, they meet a auditor, a certified charted account and asked him to write deeds to register a company with registrar of companies.
Now the question is, who is the owner? A can not be a owner as he has not business skills. B can not be a owner as he does not have funds to actualize his dreams. C can not be a owner obviously.
Now the auditor ask them to choose two or more people to appoint as directors of the company. If A and B wants to have C as a director of the company, they would consider him. Otherwise not.
Why? The group of directors (more than one person) is called
Board of Directors and the board of directors is responsible for the administration of the company. In every matter the board of directors take decisions, they are technically called resolutions. The board must have a meeting and discuss things at the end of the meeting, the board come out with a resolution to do something. That is the official decision of the company.
In our case, if C is appointed as director, then he has every right in decision making as A and B. Ok, we have there people. If there is contradicting opinions arises, what to do? Voting. Majority of directors win. So in our case every decision of C is important to pass a resolution as he may support decision of A or B. Keep the point in mind there is no special privilege to A or B as for that they invest capital or for the reason they run the business. A director is always a director. So C has every power as A and B.
This is fine with administration part. What about money? People run business to make money.
A has done entire investment. B has business skills. Now we do not call B as a "working partner" like one called in partnership-firm. He is giving a concrete position in the company by law. How?
The entire capital pumped by members (in our case it is from A it need not be always the case. more than one people could bring money in different size)
So, the entire capital is divided by a value say, Rs 10. if we divide Rs. 1000000 by 10. We get 100000. Now this one lac is number of shares that lies with the company and Rs.10, by with we divide is the "face value" of the share.
So the company (Sorry we did not name it
) let us use the word company. The company has one lack shares who's face value is Rs 10.
B must get some profit as he has the business skills.
A must get some profit as he finance the business.
C must (may) get some profit as he administer the company.
Now we divide the roles of directors : A becomes Director-Finance (for an example) B becomes Director-Production and C becomes Director-Administration.
So all the three decides to allot shares to each person. Say A get 1000 shares
B get 1000 shares (if they go for 50% -50%) C gets 500 shares. All this allocations is decided by board of directors.
If A and B does not want to allot shares to C, company (board of directors) can fix a salary for C. So a director himself or herself could be a person who does not own any share and could be a salaried employee. Ok. let us assume C too gets 500 shares.(not an employee)
To lead the directors there is a person elected by other members who is called Managing Director. People use to call themselves CEOs. A big-brother syndrome. Our law does not have word CEO. Companies act speaks about Managing Director
. Even a Managing Director could be a salaried employee.
If a company goes to open a bank account, the bank manager would ask as his first questions "Get me your MOA". What is MOA?
MOA is memorandum of association, a legal document (mostly a book) which describes everything about a company. MOA includes the exact address where the company is located, who are all the share holder, who are directors and importantly, objective of the company. Primary objective of the company is the section which describes the business activity of the company. A company CAN NOT do any business unless it is included in MAO. Say a banking company can not become a software development company overnight. It is a crime.
Ok. Now what happened to remaining shares that left after allocating shares to A B and C?
What is the difference between Pvt. Ltd. and Public Ltd. companies?
How the share holders get profit of the company appropriate to the number of share they hold?
How and why a company comes out with an IPO?
Let us discuss little by little. I writing this in the midst of burning the midnight oils.
Hope this helps you irfan91. Kindly drop some post if you don't get something
@Hari thanks for your appreciation. Kindly drop some post if you find I miss something or extra-elaborate something.
One thing for sure. If people understand these kind of stuff, they would have avoided some putting their hard-earned money in some IPOs where the company just have a board and vacant land, digging the ground to install pillars
Thanks