What are the shares and what can we do with them? Well, from a legal point of view, a share represents the property rights of its owner over a share in a company. The owner of more shares in a company is entitled to dividends for the benefit of that company, has the right to participate in decision-making through the General Shareholders’ Meeting and is entitled to one share resulting from the liquidation of the company.
From the point of view of the capital market, shares are financial instruments that investors can buy or sell in an organized and regulated market, that is, the stock market. These are financial instruments based on the capital market; its commercial offers, on the one hand, investors the opportunity to make a profit and, on the other, companies to finance themselves. Investors can make a profit by buying them at a certain price and then selling them at a higher price, and companies can finance themselves by selling them to interested investors.
There are different types of shares. The most common are the dividend rights of ordinary or common shares in the net profit obtained by the company the previous year and they also grant voting rights at the General Shareholders’ Meeting and a percentage of the amount resulting from a possible liquidation of assets in the company.
The second type is those privileged shares that give owners some additional rights but generally, compensate for this by reducing other rights. For example, holders of preferred shares may be entitled to receive dividends in a certain amount, regardless of whether the company had a profit or loss in the previous year. Furthermore, in the event of liquidation, the privileged shareholders have the right to prevail over the remaining shareholders, if the amount resulting from the sale of assets does not cover their debts.
The rights and obligations may differ from those illustrated above. One of these less common preferred stocks is the so-called “gold quota” which, in some cases, retains a majority stake in a company only to have a veto on some future strategic decisions. This scenario is usually seen when a government is selling a business, but they still want to have access to that company’s decisions or to take precedence over its replacement if the new owner decides to sell. In general, preferred shares have various types of rights associated with them, apart from common shares and generally accompanied by restrictions, such as the lack of voting rights at the General Shareholders’ Meeting.
For a company to be admitted to trading on the stock market, it must meet a number of criteria, the most important of which is profitability (companies generally must have made a profit in recent years), size ( not everyone can be admitted to the stock market). trading) and transparency (each issuer will disclose a quantity of information about its activities). Subsequently, upon admission, each issuer must continue to meet the criteria, otherwise, they could be eliminated.