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The holder for the time being of a share in the equity of a company; a part owner of a corporate enterprise. Usually, shares are issued in registered form (as opposed to bearer form), because it is sort of important to know who — you know — owns the goddamn company. Whereas your creditors, on the other hand — could you really give a fig about them? Well, obviously you could, but as a general category, when you have issued that indebtedness in the form of freely transferable debt securities, it is mainly that fact that someone (other than you)[1] holds them that concerns you, rather than precisely who.
How important the shareholder is — and should be — in the grander scheme of things, is the topic of a JC essay, here.
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- ↑ If it does happen to be you shout out, by the way, to whomsoever the wizard was who thought up debt value adjustments, allowing a near-bankrupt bank to book a profit off the discounted price at which it might buy its own paper back in the market, to massage its profit and loss statement in a particularly oily year.