6 ms·

I thought once companies got to a certain size they were forced to go public? Or is that in Canada only?

bpodgursky 13y ago
In the US once a certain number of people hold stock you have additional financial disclosure laws. But if it's owned by a single owner / family, you're never forced to go public regardless of revenue. That wouldn't make any sense, since you'd basically be forcing the owners to sell their shares whether they wanted to or not.
- abrown28 13y ago
  It's not an unwarranted assumption given all the other things our government forces us to do with our money.
- qwerta 13y ago
  I think in California you have to go public over certain number of employees. Facebook had problems with that.
  - atlbeer 13y ago
    No. Same issue. They had over the legally allowed number of shareholders
  - CyrusL 13y ago
    That was also based on the number of shareholders, not the number of employees. Facebook began issuing RSUs, which don't count towards the limit, to employees when they started approaching the 500 shareholder limit, but I believe trading on SecondMarket pushed them over 500. Also I think Facebook was originally a partnership and then converted into a DE c-corp. I don't think they were ever a CA company.
- _delirium 13y ago
  I took the comment as meaning "go public", somewhat confusingly, in a colloquial sense of "not be stealth" or "go public with their numbers" rather than "becoming a publicly owned, stock-market-traded company". The latter is indeed not the case in Canada; you can have a large privately owned company. But above a certain threshold you have to at last disclose annual revenue figures.
  - rocky1138 13y ago
    Sorry, yes, I meant become publicly trade-able. I assume this is done to force companies over a certain size to open their books? Maybe I've misunderstood how it works in Ontario/Canada as well, considering the other comments mentioning the number of shareholders.
    - simonk 13y ago
      No, in Canada you never need to open your books at any size.
hudibras 13y ago
Cargill had over $130B in revenue last year. Their exact profits are unknown (obviously) but probably around $4B a year. Not bad for a family-owned business.
joonix 13y ago
Not at all. What you're referring to has to do with exceeding a certain number of shareholders. In fact many Fortune 500 companies are privately held. Koch, SC Johnson, etc[1], not to mention the myriad large companies that are taken private by private equity firms. [1] http://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/ http://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/

In the US once a certain number of people hold stock you have additional financial disclosure laws. But if it's owned by a single owner / family, you're never forced to go public regardless of revenue. That wouldn't make any sense, since you'd basically be forcing the owners to sell their shares whether they wanted to or not.

abrown28 13y ago
It's not an unwarranted assumption given all the other things our government forces us to do with our money.
qwerta 13y ago
I think in California you have to go public over certain number of employees. Facebook had problems with that.
- atlbeer 13y ago
  No. Same issue. They had over the legally allowed number of shareholders
- CyrusL 13y ago
  That was also based on the number of shareholders, not the number of employees. Facebook began issuing RSUs, which don't count towards the limit, to employees when they started approaching the 500 shareholder limit, but I believe trading on SecondMarket pushed them over 500. Also I think Facebook was originally a partnership and then converted into a DE c-corp. I don't think they were ever a CA company.
_delirium 13y ago
I took the comment as meaning "go public", somewhat confusingly, in a colloquial sense of "not be stealth" or "go public with their numbers" rather than "becoming a publicly owned, stock-market-traded company". The latter is indeed not the case in Canada; you can have a large privately owned company. But above a certain threshold you have to at last disclose annual revenue figures.
- rocky1138 13y ago
  Sorry, yes, I meant become publicly trade-able. I assume this is done to force companies over a certain size to open their books? Maybe I've misunderstood how it works in Ontario/Canada as well, considering the other comments mentioning the number of shareholders.
  - simonk 13y ago
    No, in Canada you never need to open your books at any size.

hudibras 13y ago

Cargill had over $130B in revenue last year. Their exact profits are unknown (obviously) but probably around $4B a year. Not bad for a family-owned business.

joonix 13y ago

Not at all. What you're referring to has to do with exceeding a certain number of shareholders. In fact many Fortune 500 companies are privately held. Koch, SC Johnson, etc[1], not to mention the myriad large companies that are taken private by private equity firms. [1] http://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/ http://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/