A
shareholder or
stockholder is an
individual or
company, (including
corporations) that legally owns one or more
shares of a company. Companies listed at the
stock market strive to enhance
shareholder value[?]. Stockholders are granted special privileges depending on the class of stock, including the right to vote (usually one vote per share owned) on matters such as board of director elections, the right to share in distributions of the company's income, the right to purchase new shares issued by the company, and the right to a company's assets during a liquidation of the company. However, stockholder's rights to a company's assets are subordinate to the rights of the company's creditors. This means that stockholders typically receive nothing if a company is liquidated after
bankruptcy, although a stock may have value after a bankruptcy if there is the possibility that the debts of the company will be restructured.
Stockholders or shareholders are considered by some to be a partial subset of stakeholders which may include anyone who has a direct or indirect equity interest in the business entity or someone with even a non-pecuniary interest in a non-profit organization. Thus it might be common to call volunteer contributors to an association, such as a hypothetical online open content encyclopedia, stakeholders, even though they are not shareholders.
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