S.A. or Société anonyme (English: Anonymous society) (and variants) designates a type of corporation in countries that mostly employ civil law. Depending on language, it means anonymous company, anonymous partnership, share company, or joint-stock company, roughly equivalent to public limited company in common law jurisdictions. It is different from partnerships and private limited companies.
Originally, shareholders could be literally anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were therefore paid to whomever held the certificate. Share certificates could be transferred privately, and therefore the management of the company would not necessarily know who owned its shares.
Like bearer bonds, anonymous, illegal unregistered share ownership and dividend collection enabled money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general, so governments passed laws to audit the practice. Nowadays, shareholders of S.A.s are not anonymous, though shares can still be held by holding companies in order to obscure the beneficiary.
Video S.A. (corporation)
In different countries
S.A. can be an abbreviation of:
- Sociedade Anónima in Galician and European Portuguese (used in Portugal, Angola, Timor Leste, Macao, Mozambique, and other Portuguese-speaking countries)
- Sociedá Anónima in Asturian and Leonese
- Sociedade Anônima in Brazilian Portuguese (used in Brazil)
- Societat Anònima in Catalan
- Société anonyme (SA) in French (as used in French-speaking countries such as France (including French Polynesia, and New Caledonia) and Monaco; also in partially Francophone countries and/or nations with French as one of their official languages like Belgium, Luxembourg, Haiti, Switzerland, as well as Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Algeria and other African countries)
- Società Anonima in Italian (since 1942 Società per Azioni, S.p.A.)
- Sociedad Anónima or Sociedad por Acciones in Spanish
- Mexican law also takes into account the variability of the corporate stock, resulting in most S.A. turning into Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable (S.A. de C.V.), or Sociedad Anónima Bursátil de Capital Variable (S.A.B. de C.V.) for publicly traded companies.
- Mexico also has Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada de Capital Variable (S.R.L. de C.V.), which is analogous to the limited liability company.
- Spó?ka Akcyjna in Polish
- Societate pe Ac?iuni in Romanian
It is equivalent in literal meaning and function to:
- Naamloze vennootschap (N.V.) in Dutch
- ??????? ????????, Anonymi Etaireia (A.E.) in Greek
- Perseroan Terbatas Terbuka (P.T. Tbk.) in Indonesia
- Berhad (Bhd.) in Malaysia
- Anonim ?irket (A.?.) in Turkish
- Corporación anónima (C.A.) in Venezuela
It is equivalent in function to:
- Shoqëri Aksionare (Sh.a.) in Albanian
- ???? ????? ???? ??? ??????? ?????? ?.?.?.??, Sharikah mus?hamah ??mmah dh?t mas'?liyyah ma?d?dah (literally, "Public share company with limited liability") in Arabic
- Dioni?ko dru?tvo (d.d.) in Croatian and Bosnian
- ?????????? ?????????, Aktsionerno druzhestvo (??) in Bulgarian
- ??????????? ???????, Aktsionersko drushtvo (??) in Macedonian
- Akciová spole?nost (a.s.) in Czech
- Aktieselskab (A/S) in Danish
- Société anonyme égyptienne (S.A.E.) or (???? ?????? ????? (?.?.?? (Sherka mosahama Ma?reyya) (literally, "Egyptian share company") in Egypt
- Osakeyhtiö (Oy) in Finnish
- Aktsiaselts (AS) in Estonian
- Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in German
- Részvénytársaság (Rt) in Hungarian
- Hlutafélag (Hf) in Icelandic
- Public Limited (LTD.) in India
- Public limited company (plc) in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and several Commonwealth countries
- Kabushiki Gaisha (K.K.) or ???? in Japan
- Jusighoesa (J) or ???? in Korea
- Société anonyme laotienne (S.A.L.) in Laos
- Akcin? bendrov? (AB) in Lithuanian
- Akciju Sabiedr?ba (AS) in Latvian
- Aksjeselskap (AS) in Norwegian
- ??????????? ????????, Aktsionernoye obshchestvo (AO) in Russian
- ??????????? ???????, Deoni?arsko dru?tvo (d.d.), or ??????????? ???????, Akcionarsko dru?tvo (a.d.) in Serbian
- Akciová spolo?nos? (a.s.) in Slovak
- Delni?ka dru?ba (d.d.) in Slovene
- Aktiebolag (AB) in Swedish
- ?????????? ??????????, Aktsionerne tovarystvo (AT) in Ukrainian
- Publicly traded company or Incorporated (Inc.) in the United States, though the former term does not appear in the names of business entities
- Compañía Anónima (C.A.) in Andorra
- ?.?(???????????????) or Société anonyme cambodgienne (S.A.C.) (literally, "Cambodian share company") in Cambodia
Maps S.A. (corporation)
References
External links
- Global Witness on Anonymous Companies
Source of article : Wikipedia
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