Frequently a Buy-Sell Agreement is the name used for a Shareholders Agreement in a corporation. Sometimes, though, a Buy-Sell Agreement only refers to that part of a Shareholders Agreement that provides for the remaining shareholders to purchase a deceased or withdrawing shareholders’ shares. Though a solid first step, ideally your corporation would be protected by [...]
Unanimous voting rights can bog down the governance of any enterprise, especially where there are several owners. Sometimes it’s necessary when, say, you have only two owners and they both want to be sure to be included in every decision. Typically, though, unless required by law, you’ll want to avoid unanimous voting requirements, opting instead [...]
Voting rights in your entity are an important element of its governance. Sometimes a minority investor, or group of investors, may want the right to vote (or veto) certain business decisions, even though they don’t have the equity to sway a vote. Nevertheless, you may want to give them certain veto rights as part of [...]
Capitalization can mean a couple of things. At first it usually refers to the contributions of money or property that the owners (shareholders or members) have contributed to the business, their “capital contributions”. Later on, or as a result, or in anticipation of such contributions, it may refer to a capitalization chart or table, which will set out each owner and their percentage interest in the entity.
Simply put, those are the owners, and they can be in many shapes and sizes. A shareholder can be an individual who owns shares in GM or Microsoft; it can be you, owning 100% of the issued shares in your own corporation. It can be another corporation or venture capital firm owning shares in your start-up. "Stockholder" and "shareholder" typically means the same thing.
Good question. This concept often gets confused with “authorized shares”. Issued shares are those shares that the corporation has actually “issued”, i.e., transferred to a shareholder. This can be in the form of a certificate, and that can be typical in a small business. In larger businesses, the ownership of issued shares is usually a journal entry in the corporation’s books and records, or with the broker. The number of issues shares cannot exceed the number of authorized shares.
Directors are the individuals who make up the board of directors. Due to the responsibility these individuals have, it’s common for the business to obtain insurance to cover the directors (aka D&O insurance) for the decisions they make, even though the fact of the corporation is supposed to shield – sometimes things don’t go the way you expect . . . pesky lawyers!!
Hopefully something that you have plenty of! A dividend is the cash (or property) that is transferred from the corporation to its shareholders after all expenses are paid, including the corporation’s taxes. Only C Corporations pay “dividends”; S Corporations make “distributions”, since S Corporations themselves do not generally pay taxes. A dividend is not a deductible expense of the corporation.
In lay terms, a distribution is another way of saying a payment to a shareholder, partner or member of the business’s profit. Typically the distribution is in the form of cash, but sometimes it’s in the form of property like an asset. What you receive typically depends on your percentage interest in the business. So [...]
A CEO is the Chief Executive Officer. This is the person responsible for over-seeing all of the day-to-day activities of the corporation. Sometimes LLCs have CEOs. The CEO is the face of the company, and so larger businesses tend to hire a CEO that has appeal to the public to encourage investment in the business, or to attract new customers. The CEO, when it comes to extraordinary decisions, seeks and takes direction from the board of directors. The CEO can be, but need not be, a shareholder.
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