General Market Question
Can anyone answer these Carlinesque questions?
#1) If a company buys back all but one of their shares, does the person who owns that last share own the whole company? #2) If a company buys back all of their own shares, who owns the company?
Asked by tldwg04011 in
General Market
one year ago
Answers
412 points
MajorPayne answered one year ago …
1. No -- the company owns the company. It would be as if the company went private again (a company can't be a publicly traded company with a single outside shareholder). This is what happens in an LBO pretty much.
2. The company does -- there are probably private shareholders at the helm of the company (or other private investors). If they retire the shares they've bought back then their percentage of ownership increases commensurately.
