A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a kind of public company (publicly held company) in the United Kingdom, some Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited (liability) company whose shares are freely sold and traded to the public, with a minimum share capital of £50,000 and the letters PLC after its name. Similar companies in the United States are called publicly traded companies.
A PLC can be either an unlisted or listed company on the stock exchanges. In the United Kingdom, a public limited company usually must include the words "public limited company" or the abbreviation "PLC" or "plc" at the end and as part of the legal company name. Welsh companies may instead choose to end their names with c.c.c. However, some public limited companies (mostly nationalised concerns) incorporated under special legislation are exempted from bearing any of the identifying suffixes.
Read more about Public Limited Company: Registration, Company Directors, Share Capital
Famous quotes containing the words public, limited and/or company:
“A man does not automatically become a public figure because he happens to build an empire out of chicken fat.”
—J.P. (James Pinckney)
“In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“It’s given new meaning to me of the scientific term black hole.”
—Don Logan, U.S. businessman, president and chief executive of Time Inc. His response when asked how much his company had spent in the last year to develop Pathfinder, Time Inc.’S site on the World Wide Web. Quoted in New York Times, p. D7 (November 13, 1995)