Re:BMW Overtakes Tesla in European EV Sales for First Time
by throwadobe on Saturday August 24, 2024 @09:44PM
(#41343622)
Those are opinion pieces and meant to be contrarian. Shareholders by definition own the equity of the company. You're confounding the equity with the enterprise, while also ignoring the meaning of "control".
Having IOUs from the company in the form of future goods or services owed to customers, interest payments owed to debtholders or future taxes owed to the government do not equate to having an actual ownership in the business.
They do not actually.
* https://archive.ph/VCUp4 / https://www.ft.com/content/7bd1b20a-879b-11e5-90de-f44762bf9...
* https://www.pqmagazine.com/the-myth-of-shareholder-ownership...
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergeorgescu/2021/07/21/the-s...
* https://edwardslaw.ca/blog/shareholders-agreements-in-canada...
* https://www.ippr.org/articles/who-owns-a-company
* https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-instituti...
They have certain claims, but so do customers, suppliers, employees, governments (taxes), bond holders, etc. The claims of shareholders come last, which is why owning stock gets you higher returns (than, e.g., bonds from the company): you're at highest risk of losing money from being last on claims, so you should be rewarded for that higher risk.