Company

For other uses, see Company (disambiguation).

A company is an association or collection of individuals, whether natural persons, legal persons, or a mixture of both. Company members share a common purpose and unite in order to focus their various talents and organize their collectively available skills or resources to achieve specific, declared goals. Companies take various forms such as:

• Voluntary associations which may include nonprofit organization
• A group of soldiers
• Business entities with an aim of gaining a profit
• Financial entities and banks

A company or association of persons can be created at law as legal person so that the company in itself can accept Limited liability for civil responsibility and taxation incurred as members perform (or fail) to discharge their duty within the publicly declared "birth certificate" or published policy.

Because companies are legal persons, they also may associate and register themselves as companies – often known as a corporate group. When the company closes it may need a "death certificate" to avoid further legal obligations.

Meanings and definitions

A company can be defined as an "artificial person", invisible, intangible, created by or under law, with a discrete legal entity, perpetual succession and a common seal. It is not affected by the death, insanity or insolvency of an individual member.

Etymology

The English word company has its origins in the Old French military term compaignie (first recorded in 1150), meaning a "body of soldiers", and originally from the Late Latin word companio "companion, one who eats bread [pane] with you", first attested in the Lex Salica as a calque of the Germanic expression *gahlaibo (literally, "with bread"), related to Old High German galeipo "companion" and Gothic gahlaiba "messmate". By 1303, the word referred to trade guilds. Usage of company to mean "business association" was first recorded in 1553, and the abbreviation "co." dates from 1769. (French uses the equivalent abbreviation cie.)

United States

In the United States, a company may be a "corporation, partnership, association, joint-stock company, trust, fund, or organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, and (in an official capacity) any receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, or similar official, or liquidating agent, for any of the foregoing". In the US, a company is not necessarily a corporation.

United Kingdom

In English law and in legal jurisdictions based upon it, a company is a body corporate or corporation company registered under the Companies Acts or similar legislation. Common forms include:

• Private companies limited by guarantee
• Companies without share capital (often non-profit entities)
• Private companies limited by shares - the most common form of company
• Public limited companies - companies, usually large, which are permitted to (but do not have to) offer their shares to the public, for example on a stock exchange

In Britain a partnership is not legally a company, but may sometimes be referred to informally as a company. It may be referred to as a firm.

Types

For a country-by-country listing, see Types of business entity.

• A company limited by guarantee. Commonly used where companies are formed for non-commercial purposes, such as clubs or charities. The members guarantee the payment of certain (usually nominal) amounts if the company goes into insolvent liquidation, but otherwise they have no economic rights in relation to the company. This type of company is common in England. A company limited by guarantee may be with or without having share capital.
• A company limited by shares. The most common form of company used for business ventures. Specifically, a limited company is a " company in which the liability of each shareholder is limited to the amount individually invested" with corporations being "the most common example of a limited company." This type of company is common in England and many English-speaking countries. A company limited by shares may be a
  • publicly traded company or a
  • Privately held company.
• A company limited by guarantee with a share capital. A hybrid entity, usually used where the company is formed for non-commercial purposes, but the activities of the company are partly funded by investors who expect a return. This type of company may no longer be formed in the UK, although provisions still exist in law for them to exist.
• A limited-liability company. "A company—statutorily authorized in certain states—that is characterized by limited liability, management by members or managers, and limitations on ownership transfer", i.e., L.L.C. LLC structure has been called "hybrid" in that it "combines the characteristics of a corporation and of a partnership or sole proprietorship". Like a corporation it has limited liability for members of the company, and like a partnership it has "flow-through taxation to the members" and must be "dissolved upon the death or bankruptcy of a member".
• An unlimited company with or without a share capital. A hybrid entity, a company where the liability of members or shareholders for the debts (if any) of the company are not limited. In this case doctrine of veil of incorporation does not apply.

Less common types of companies are:

• Companies formed by letters patent. Most corporations by letters patent are corporations sole and not companies as the term is commonly understood today.
• Charter corporations. Before the passing of modern companies legislation, these were the only types of companies. Now they are relatively rare, except for very old companies that still survive (of which there are still many, particularly many British banks), or modern societies that fulfill a quasi regulatory function (for example, the Bank of England is a corporation formed by a modern charter).
• Statutory Companies. Relatively rare today, certain companies have been formed by a private statute passed in the relevant jurisdiction.

Note that "Ltd after the company's name signifies limited company, and PLC (public limited company) indicates that its shares are widely held."

In legal parlance, the owners of a company are normally referred to as the "members". In a company limited or unlimited by shares (formed or incorporated with a share capital), this will be the shareholders. In a company limited by guarantee, this will be the guarantors. Some offshore jurisdictions have created special forms of offshore company in a bid to attract business for their jurisdictions. Examples include "segregated portfolio companies" and restricted purpose companies.

There are however, many, many sub-categories of types of company that can be formed in various jurisdictions in the world.

Companies are also sometimes distinguished for legal and regulatory purposes between public companies and private companies. Public companies are companies whose shares can be publicly traded, often (although not always) on a stock exchange which imposes listing requirements/Listing Rules as to the issued shares, the trading of shares and future issue of shares to help bolster the reputation of the exchange or particular market of an exchange. Private companies do not have publicly traded shares, and often contain restrictions on transfers of shares. In some jurisdictions private companies have maximum numbers of shareholders.

A parent company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors; the second company being deemed as a subsidiary of the parent company. The definition of a parent company differs by jurisdiction, with the definition normally being defined by way of laws dealing with companies in that jurisdiction.

Largest companies

The following table illustrates companies by size and country of origin. All the values have been publicly revealed in the respective company annual report and are recorded as of 2014.

Company name	Industry	Sales (US$ billion)
Walmart	Retail	485,651
Royal Dutch Shell	Oil and Gas	421,105
Goldman Sachs	Financial Services	460,000
Exxon Mobil	Oil and Gas	453,100
Barclays	Financial Services	454,900
Sinopec	Oil and Gas	411,700
BP	Oil and Gas	370,900
Saudi Aramco	Oil and Gas	356,000
China National Petroleum	Oil and Gas	328,500
Deutsche Bank	Financial Services	320,000
Vitol	Commodities	303,000
State Grid Corporation of China	Electric Power	265,000
Volkswagen	Automotive	254,000
Chevron	Oil and Gas	242,000
Total	Oil and Gas	240,000
Toyota	Automotive	222,000
Glencore	Commodities	214,000
ING	Financial Services	197,900
Samsung	Computers	187,000
E.ON	Electric Power	174,000
Japan Post Holdings	Conglomerate	168,000
Eni	Oil and Gas	167,000
Phillips 66	Oil and Gas	166,000
Gazprom	Oil and Gas	164,000
Berkshire Hathaway	Conglomerate	162,000
Apple	Computers	156,000
General Motors	Automotive	152,000
Bank of America	Financial Services	150,480
Daimler	Automotive	150,000
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China	Financial Services	148,700
General Electric	Conglomerate	147,000
Citigroup	Financial Services	146,560
HSBC	Financial Services	146,100
Petrobras	Oil and Gas	144,000
Allianz	Financial Services	140,000
Enron	Conglomerate	137,718
Agricultural Bank of China	Financial Services	136,400
Cargill	Commodities	136,000
Ford	Automotive	134,000
Lukoil	Oil and Gas	134,000
JX Holdings	Oil and Gas	130,000
GDF Suez	Electric Power	128,000
AT&T	Telecommunications	127,000
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone	Telecommunications	127,000
BNP Paribas	Financial Services	126,000
Valero Energy	Oil and Gas	126,000
PDVSA	Oil and Gas	125,000
McKesson	Healthcare	123,000
Trafigura	Commodities	122,000
China Construction Bank	Financial Services	121,300
HP (Hewlett-Packard)	Computers	120,000
AXA	Financial Services	118,000
Hitachi	Computers	117,000
JP Morgan	Financial Services	116,400
Foxconn	Computers	114,000
Nissan	Automotive	114,000
Tesco	Retail	114,000
AIG	Financial Services	113,190
Statoil	Oil and Gas	112,000
Pemex	Oil and Gas	111,000
Koch Industries	Conglomerate	110,000
Verizon	Telecommunications	110,000
Santander	Financial Services	109,700
Exor	Conglomerate	109,000
Royal Bank Scotland	Financial Services	108,500
Societe Generale	Financial Services	108,000
Cardinal Health	Healthcare	107,000
CVS Caremark	Retail	107,000
IBM	Computers	107,000
UBS	Financial Services	105,590
Bank of China	Financial Services	105,100
Carrefour	Retail	105,000
Assicurazioni Generali	Financial Services	104,000
BASF	Manufacturing	104,000
Kuwait Petroleum	Oil and Gas	104,000
Credit Suisse	Financial Services	103,720
Enel	Electric Power	103,000
United Health
Siemens	Conglomerate	101,000
Nestle	Agribusiness	100,000
Tata	Conglomerate	100,000

See also

• Corporate personhood
• List of company registers
• List of largest employers
• Lists of companies – company-related list articles on Wikipedia

Further reading

• Dignam, A and Lowry, J (2006) Company Law, Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-928936-3.
• John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: a Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (New York: Modern Library, 2003)