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Concept
Privately held company
Summary
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation (or closely held corporation), there are relatively few shareholders or company members. Related terms are unquoted company and unlisted company.
They are less visible and may be less popular than their publicly traded counterparts, but private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 largest private companies in the United States accounted for 1 billion in revenue was 305.
Separately, all non-government-owned companies are considered private enterprises. That meaning includes both publicly traded and privately held companies since their investors are individuals in the private sector.
Private ownership of productive assets differs from state ownership or collective ownership (as in worker-owned companies). This usage is often found in former Eastern Bloc countries to differentiate from former state-owned enterprises, but it may be used anywhere when contrasting to a state-owned or a collectively owned company.
In the United States, the term privately held company is more often used to describe for-profit enterprises whose shares are not traded on the stock market.
In countries with public trading markets, a privately held business is generally taken to mean one whose ownership shares or interests are not publicly traded.
Official source
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Related concepts (19)
Stock
Stock (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets (after discharge of all senior claims such as secured and unsecured debt), or voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the amount of money each stockholder has invested.
Joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to access a new market, particularly emerging market; to gain scale efficiencies by combining assets and operations; to share risk for major investments or projects; or to access skills and capabilities.
Public company
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (listed company), which facilitates the trade of shares, or not (unlisted public company). In some jurisdictions, public companies over a certain size must be listed on an exchange. In most cases, public companies are private enterprises in the private sector, and "public" emphasizes their reporting and trading on the public markets.
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