Public company

Public company: defined by section 4(2) of CA 2006, is a company with public ownership and has shares that trade on a public market. For a company to be public in the UK, its articles must indicate that it is a public company, ‘public limited company’ (or its abbreviation ‘plc’) must be added to the end of the company name, and it should have a minimum share capital of £50,000, referred to as the “authorised minimum”. A public company, if it wishes to do so, may apply to join the stock market. A public company’s shares typically are initially issued through an IPO and any following issuances typically are done by a follow-on public offering. The primary benefit of a public company is that, unlike a private company, it may raise funds from the general public, however, this also means that public companies are subject to stricter regulation.