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Producing Your Own Share Certificates
If you have a private limited company, you can produce your own certificate
In a small private limited company, the secretary or directors usually act as the registrars of the company. This involves the company in keeping and maintaining the statutory books of the company and issuing its own share certificates and dividend vouchers and producing a list of shareholders when required.
When issuing share certificates, you can use templates supplied by a legal stationers or company formation agent, or you can design your own and include logos and images if you wish. The essentials that need to be included are:
- The company name and number
- The type of share you are issuing
- The name and address of the shareholder
- The number of shares (in words) that are assigned to the shareholder
- The value of the share
- A signature from a director and secretary (where appointed) of the company
Companies can have more than one type of share if they wish and can have shares in one or more currencies. Each class of shares can have different rights attached to them, these rights could include the right to vote at meetings or on a resolution, the right to dividends and the right to participate in the assets of the company in the event of a distribution or winding up.
The most commonly used types of shares are:
- Ordinary Shares: these are the most common type and are the ordinary type of shares of the company with no particular rights. However, they may be subdivided into one or more classes of ordinary share with different values or with different rights. For example, an employer might create a class of employee shares that would participate in dividends but have no voting rights or rights of participation in the event of a distribution or winding up. These might be called Ordinary “B” shares while the owner of the company would hold Ordinary “A” shares with full rights to retain control of the company and its assets.
- Preference Shares: these shares usually carry the right that any annual dividends declared will be paid to the holders of these shares before other classes of shareholder.
- Cumulative Preference Shares: these are preference shares which have the right to have their dividend carried forward to the next year so if the dividend cannot be paid in any one year it will not be lost but accumulate instead.
- Redeemable Shares: these are shares that the company has agreed to buy back. The terms of issue of redeemable shares are at the discretion of the company. The date of the buyback may be a fixed date in the future, after a certain period of time or at the option of either the company or the shareholder. When this type of share is issued, the SH01 form filed at Companies House should clearly specify the terms and conditions and manner of redemption.
If you would rather use a predesigned template for your share certificates, @UKPLC Company Registrations is pleased to offer you an affordable option.