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What is the word (or phrase) used to refer to what is sold by companies to investors? When an investor comes to own more than 50% of them, he becomes the owner of the company:

In French it is: "Les parts d'une entreprise"

Could it be something like: "The parts of a company"?

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  • It may be possible to translate what I mean without using that word at all, considering that what is bought by investors is the company itself : "They bought 50% of the company Axa Real Estate."
    – loxaxs
    Sep 21, 2014 at 14:15
  • Ownership of a majority of the voting rights in a company only provides a "controlling interest" or "control" of a company. The minority shareholders still have ownership rights, so "control" of a company is not the same as being "the owner of the company".
    – Jasper
    Nov 11, 2016 at 4:18

2 Answers 2

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In English, owning a stake in a company is called equity.

Alternatively, you may use stake (6a) as I used before.

The equity of a business is decided by the number of shares one owns.

Or

I have a 33.3% stake in young but upcoming company.

EDIT:

Shares is also a very likely candidate. It is only applicable to (private or public) companies. A partnership or other business entity won't have shares, and any ownership may need to be described by using one of my previous suggestions. In all likeliehood, shares is the word you need in this case, and so, props to @snailboat for jolting me awake on a Sunday afternoon.

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    I think they might be looking for shares. Maybe you could talk about that briefly, too?
    – user230
    Sep 21, 2014 at 14:06
  • Yes, I checked, "shares" is exactly what I mean.
    – loxaxs
    Sep 21, 2014 at 14:17
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Companies sell "securities" to investors, including "notes", "bonds", "preferred stock", "convertible bonds", "warrants", and "common stock".

"Common stock" usually comes with "voting rights" proportional to the number of shares owned. (Some companies have multiple classes of stock; certain classes may have more voting rights per "share" than others.)

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