Shareholder
|
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 that fact that someone holds them that mainly concerns you, rather than precisely who.
Once upon a time, not terribly long ago, the shareholder was an opaque yet sacred being, somewhat divine, to whose improving ends everyone engaged in the company’s operation twitched their every last fibre. Measurement of performance was simple: the shareholders’ interest propelled the machine and that interest could be measured in a single dimension: earnings, before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation. Nothing else mattered, and this even put a gate on the extent to which the company’s directors, officers, servants and agents could let the agency problem colour their pursuit of this noble singular goal.