S.A. (corporation)

S.A. (and variants) designates a type of corporation in countries that mostly employ civil law. Depending on language, it means anonymous company, anonymous partnership, or share 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 whoever 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, unregistered share ownership and dividend collection enabled money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general, so governments passed laws to eradicate 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 beneficial owner.

In different countries

S.A. can be an abbreviation of:

[Sociedade Anónima] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Galician and European Portuguese (used in Portugal, Angola, Timor Leste, Macao, Mozambique and other Portuguese-speaking countries)
[Sociedá Anónima] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Asturian and Leonese
[Sociedade Anônima] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Brazilian Portuguese (used in Brazil)
[Societat Anònima] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Catalan
[Société anonyme] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) 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, Quebec, Haiti, Switzerland, as well as Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Algeria and other African countries)
[Società Anonima] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Italian (since 1942 [Società per Azioni] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), S.p.A.)
[Sociedad Anónima] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or [Sociedad por Acciones] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Spanish; variations include Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable (S.A. de C.V.) and Sociedad Anónima Bursátil de Capital Variable (S.A.B. de C.V.) for publicly traded companies in Mexico
- Mexico also has Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada de Capital Variable (S. de R. L. de C.V.)
[Spółka Akcyjna] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Polish
[Societate pe Acțiuni] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Romanian

It is equivalent in literal meaning and function to:

[Naamloze vennootschap (N.V.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Dutch
[Ανώνυμη Εταιρεία] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Anonymi Etaireia (A.E.) in Greek
[Perseroan Terbatas Terbuka (P.T. Tbk.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Indonesia
[Berhad (Bhd.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Malaysia
[Anonim Şirket (A.Ş.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Turkish

It is equivalent in function to:

[Shoqëri Aksionare (Sh.a.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Albanian
[(.شركة مساهة عامة ذات مسؤولية محدودة (ش.ذ.م.م] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Arabic
[Dioničko društvo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (d.d.) in Croatian and Bosnian
[Акционерно дружество] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Aktsionerno druzhestvo (АД) in Bulgarian
Акционерско друштво, Aktsionersko drushtvo (АД) in Macedonian
[Société anonyme cambodgienne (S.A.C.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Cambodia
[Akciová společnost] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (a.s.) in Czech
Aktieselskab (A/S) in Danish
[Société anonyme égyptienne (S.A.E.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or [(.شركة مساهة مصرية (ش.م.م] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Egypt
Osakeyhtiö (Oy) in Finnish
Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in German
Részvénytársaság (Rt) in Hungarian
[Hlutafélag] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Icelandic
[Public Limited (LTD.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in India
[Public limited company] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (plc) in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and several Commonwealth countries
[Kabushiki Gaisha] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (K.K.) or [株式会社] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Japan
[주식회사] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Korea
[Société anonyme laotienne (S.A.L.)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Laos
[Akcinė bendrovė] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (AB) in Lithuanian
[Akciju Sabiedrība] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (AS) in Latvian
Aksjeselskap (AS) in Norwegian
[Акционерное общество] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Aktsionernoye obshchestvo (AO) in Russian
[Деоничарско друштво, Deoničarsko društvo (d.d.), or Акционарско друштво, Akcionarsko društvo] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (a.d.) in Serbian
[Akciová spoločnosť] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (a.s.) in Slovak
[Delniška družba] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (d.d.) in Slovene
Aktiebolag (AB) in Swedish
[Акціонерне товариство] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Aktsionerne tovarystvo (AT) in Ukrainian
[Publicly traded company] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in the United States, though that term does not appear in the names of business entities

External links

Global Witness on Anonymous Companies