Actual Owner

  

An Actual Owner is...the actual owner.

Bet you're shocked to read that, but as you might imagine, evil-do'ers often present themselves as being the actual or real owner, or beneficial owner, when in fact, they're just interlopers trying to abscond with a rube's hard-earned cash.

In partnerships and public companies, determining the actual owner doesn't necessarily involve evil-do'ers. Instead, there can be debate as to who controls the company, either via board member attribution, or share count behind the board.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is a partnership?23 Views

00:00

finance a la shmoop. what is a partnership? a marriage. joint ownership

00:08

of a bar. when two dudes put up half the dough each to share 50/50 in a time [two different people offer money for keys]

00:14

machine. well a partnership is just the merging

00:16

of two individuals in doing a given business deal or setting up a business

00:20

structure. if both are owners then both are liable for you know bad things

00:26

should they happen. partnerships carry a lot of financial danger if one partner

00:31

goes off the rails and decides to commit fraud in the name of the company or that

00:35

evil partner enters into a stupid company bankrupting contract, well then [bad contract sold to unsuspecting victim]

00:40

both parties pay for it. the innocent partner pays just as much in the form of

00:45

whatever financial damages befall the partnership as the evil one, and

00:49

partnership liabilities include personal assets if the partnership is structured

00:54

like a general partnership with limited partners having no personal liability so [ liability structures defined]

00:59

for all the good that a partnership can have it can get bad and ugly so you got

01:06

to enter partnerships carefully. spend lots of dough on lawyers before you set

01:09

it up so you don't have to after. [money exchanged for partnership contract ]

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