Ownership

A business is an organization of material, human, financial, and information resources that are joined together for a specific purpose. Not all businesses are owned and organized in the same way.

In unlimited liability companies the owners are personally and entirely liable for the debts of the company. This means they may lose their personal assets (e.g., their house or their car) if the company is in financial difficulties.

In a limited liability company (Ltd.) the owners are liable only for the amount of money they have invested in the business.

Unlimited liability companies are subdivided into sole traders (BrE)/ sole proprietorship (AmE) (a type of business organization owned and run by one person) and partnerships (BrE)/ general partnerships (AmE) (a firm run by two or more partners). A lot of professional people like lawyers, accountants and so on, work in partnerships.

Limited liability companies are subdivided into private limited companies (Ltd) (BrE)/ limited liability companies (AmE) and public limited companies (PLC) (BrE)/ listed companies (AmE). A private limited company/limited liability company is a company which has shareholders (people who own the wealth of a company) but which cannot offer its shares to the public.

A public-limited company/listed company is a company whose shares can be bought and sold (publicly traded) on the stock exchange.

Notes: A public limited company is privately owned. It is not run by the state.

Exercises in Word Study

Ex.1. Form adjectives from the following nouns:

organization, material, finance, information, purpose, specification, wealth, liability, owner, person, difficulty.

Ex.2. Give the English for:

фінансові та інформаційні ресурси, компанія з необмеженою відповідальністю, власник, бути повністю відповідальним за борги компанії, втрачати власне майно, фінансові труднощі, компанія з обмеженою відповідальністю, одноосібна власність, товариство, закрита акціонерна компанія, відкрита акціонерна компанія з обмеженою відповідальністю, акціонер, пропонувати акції, продавати акції на фондовій біржі.