The abbreviation S.A. or SA designates a type of limited company in certain countries, most of which have a Romance language as their official language and employ civil law. Originally, shareholders could be literally anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were paid to whomever held the certificate. Since share certificates could be transferred privately, corporate management would not necessarily know who owned its shares – nor did anyone but the holders.
As with bearer bonds, anonymous unregistered share ownership and dividend collection enabled money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general, so governments passed laws to audit the practice. Nowadays, shareholders of S.A.s are not anonymous, though shares can still be held by a holding company in order to obscure the beneficiary.
Variations
Abbreviation
S.A. can be an abbreviation of: in Galician and European Portuguese (used in Portugal, Timor Leste, Macao, and Lusophone Africa) Equivalent as in Chinese for Macau in Brazilian Portuguese (used in Brazil) in Asturian and Leonese in Catalan in French (as used in French-speaking countries such as France (including French Polynesia, and New Caledonia) and Monaco; also in partially Francophone countries and/or nations with French as one of their official languages like Belgium (where it is equivalent to a ), Luxembourg (also identifiable in Luxembourgish as ), Switzerland (where it is equivalent to an or a ), as well as Haiti, Lebanon, and such African countries as Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Algeria) in Canadian French in Swiss Italian (in Italy replaced by , S.p.A., since 1942) or in Spanish Mexican law also takes into account the variability of the corporate stock, resulting in most S.A. turning into (S.A. de C.V.), or (S.A.B. de C.V.) for publicly traded companies. Mexico also has , which is analogous to the limited liability company. in Polish in Romanian
Literal meaning
It is equivalent in literal meaning and function to: (N.V.) in Dutch (P.T. Tbk.) in Indonesia (Bhd.) in Malaysia (A.Ş.) or Anonim Ortaklık (A.O.) in Turkish (C.A.) in Ecuador and Venezuela (, A.E.) in Greek is usually translated into S.A. in English and foreign languages.
Function
It is equivalent in function to: in Albanian , () in Arabic (d.d.) in Croatian and Bosnian , (АД) in Bulgarian , (АД) in Macedonian (a.s.) in Czech (A/S) in Danish (S.A.E.) or (, , abbreviated ) in Egypt (Oy) in Finnish (AS) in Estonian (AG) in German (Rt) in Hungarian (Hf) in Icelandic Private Limited (Pvt. Ltd.) in India Public limited company (plc) in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and several Commonwealth countries (K.K.) or in Japan (J) or in Korea in Laos (AB) in Lithuanian (AS) in Latvian (AS) in Norwegian , (AO) in Russian , (d.d.), or , (a.d.) in Serbian Private Limited (Pte. Ltd.) in Singapore (a.s.) in Slovak (d.d.) in Slovene (AB) in Swedish (S.A.P.) in Tagalog , (AT) in Ukrainian Publicly traded company ("public company") or Incorporated (Inc.) in the United States, though the former term does not appear in the names of business entities (C.A.) in Andorra or (S.A.C.; ) in Cambodia in Vietnam in Chinese
See also
Président-directeur général (France)