According to the relevant provisions of Chapter 4, Section 5 of the Company Law of the People's Republic of China*** and the State, a listed company is a joint stock limited company whose publicly issued shares have been approved by the State Council or the securities administration authorized by the State Council to be listed and traded on a stock exchange. The so-called unlisted company means a joint stock limited company whose shares are not listed and not traded on a stock exchange.
A listed company is a kind of joint-stock limited company, and this kind of company to be listed and traded on the stock exchange must meet certain conditions in addition to being approved. Amendments to the Company Law and the Securities Law have facilitated more companies to become listed companies and companies whose bonds are traded on the stock exchange.
Basic characteristics of listed companies:
I. A listed company is a company limited by shares. A joint-stock limited company may be an unlisted company with the general characteristics of a joint-stock limited company, such as shareholders bear limited liability, ownership and operation. Shareholders participate in corporate decision-making by electing the board of directors and voting, etc.
Two, listed companies are subject to the approval of government authorities. According to the provisions of the Company Law, to be listed, a joint stock limited company must be approved by the State Council or the securities administration department authorized by the State Council, and without such approval, it shall not be listed.
Third, the shares issued by listed companies are traded on the stock exchange. Stocks issued that are not traded on the stock exchange are not listed stocks.
Compared with general companies, the biggest characteristic of listed companies lies in the fact that they can utilize the stock market to raise funds and widely absorb the idle funds in the society, so as to rapidly expand the scale of the enterprise and enhance the competitiveness of the products and the market share. Therefore, after the development of the limited company to a certain scale, the company's shares are often publicly listed on the stock exchange as an important strategic step in the development of enterprises.
From the point of view of international experience, the world's leading large enterprises are almost all listed companies. For example, 95% of the 500 large companies in the United States are listed companies.
First of all, a listed company is also a company, a part of the company. From this point of view, there is a difference between listed and unlisted companies. Secondly, the listed company is the company's assets are divided into a number of points, trading in the stock exchange market, everyone can buy the shares of such a company so as to become the company's shareholders, the listing is an important channel of corporate finance, the shares of unlisted companies can not be traded in the stock exchange market (all companies have a proportion of the shares: the state investment, personal investment, bank loans, venture capital). Listed companies are required to regularly disclose to the public information about the company's assets, transactions, annual reports and other relevant information, while unlisted companies do not have to. Finally, in terms of profitability, it is not possible to say absolutely who is better and who is worse. Being listed does not mean that the profitability is much stronger, and not being listed does not mean that there is no profitability. Of course, if a company with strong profitability is listed, it will be more likely to be sought after.