TNAG-2378-FCO40-3457-Hong-Kong-nationality-British-Nationality-(Hong-Kong)-Act-19-1991 — Page 74

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UK COMPANY INFORMATION

COMPANY STRUCTURE IN THE UK

Information about companies is derived from three main categories of source material.

1. Information which a company is obliged by law to reveal.

2. Information which a company supplies voluntarily.

3. Information supplied by a third party.

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Customers

- Stockbrokers

Research companies PR companies

Accountants

These are all people who have dealings with the company. The third party may also be a publisher who has collected together data on the company or several companies. He may be a directory publisher or a journalist writing an article about a company.

The amount of information available on a particular company depends on

on the structure of the company. Is it a PUBLIC or PRIVATE Company ?

Each country has laws regulating the legal types of company formation and on the filing requirements for the different types of companies.

In the UK a company is classified as :

PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY or PLC

A PLC must have an allotted share capital of at least £50,000 of which à quarter or more must be fully paid up. Only PLC's are allowed to offer shares to the Public and be admitted to the Stock Exchange. Not all PLCs do offer their shares to the public.

PLCS with shares traded on the Stock Exchange are often referred to as QUOTED companies. If a company wants to offer it's shares to the public there are two stages which it can go through. The first is the Third Market, the second is the USM (Unlisted Securities Market.)

PRIVATE LIMITED COMPANY or CO LTD. or LTD.

This form of structure is more common. There are more than a million such companies registered in the UK and they include a number of very small concerns. They are not permitted to offer shares to the public at large and there are no minimum capital requirements beyond having paid in shares of £2, a minimum of 2 shareholders, one of whom must be a director.

Both these types of enterprise must be registered at COMPANIES HOUSE the Company Registration Office. There are certain filing

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