Corp Talk, Do you speak corporate jargon ? Options

[Nath]

I'm trying to put together something to help people understanding precise terms used in corporate affair. I've heard Corporate Shadowfiles was a great book but I'm unable to find a copy (I know, don't say, Ebay and so on...) so I'm on my way with that. At some point I considered adding examples, but so far I only made so for a couple of entries.

Now I turn for outside help. The first point would be to check if I'm not completely wrong in my understanding of certain terms, or in the explanation I gave. I'd like also to know if those explanations are clear enough to be understandable. And then there's my English to correct.

Bid: indication of a will to buy at a certain price.

Board of Directors: body of representative elected by the shareholders among them and checking the management of the company. In most system, each director holds a single vote, no matter how many shares he owns. In some countries, representative of the government or of the personnel might be included with special right of votes.

Bond: The bond issuer must pay a fixed-rate interest to the bond owner until the maturity date is reached and the repayment of the bond.

Broker: individual or corporation handling transactions on a customer's behalf.

Consortium: several companies conducting business together while keeping their ownership separated. Usually the companies creates a joint-venture that will administrate the business, produces and/or commercialize the products. Generally, "consortium" is used when at least three companies unites.

Corporation: entities legally liable in the same way than a living person.

Liam bought a box of the new Fragmentation Bullets of Ares Ammunitions Incorporated. But after loading them in his machine gun, a misfire occurs in his first burst. Learning that such things is occurring with all those bullets, Liam contacts a lawyer to lodge a complain against the absence of indication on the use of the Fragmentation Bullets with a full automatic weapon. Only Ares Ammunitions Inc. will be judged. The sysop of Ares Ammo online ordering Matrix site, the designer of the Fragmentation Bullet box, the engineer who conceived the bullet, Ares Ammunitions CEO and Ares Ammunitions' owner (none other than Ares Small Arms, itself a subsidiary of Ares Arms, in turn a subsidiary of Ares Macrotechnology) won't be concerned, at least in the first round of legal procedures.

Dividend: part of its profits after tax that a company pay to its shareholders.

Shiawase has been particularly profitable this year. To thanks the shareholders, motivate more people to buy Shiawase stock and line his own bank account, President/CEO Tadashi Shiawase decide to pay a dividend of 6¥ for each share. Vaughan, who owns 200 Shiawase shares since he did some clandestine work for the corporation, receives 1,200¥. He might consider buying more of these shares if he can win such sums every year that way instead of selling.

Index: value calculated from a set of stocks to represent the average tendency of an area's companies.

Issue: creation of new shares the company sell to get money.

Renraku built a new headquarters for the American division and bought Fuchi Corporate Services. Both required millions of nuyens, more than Renraku could afford. Renraku board of directors decides to perform a stock issue for 10% of Renraku current stock. People will be able to buy to Renraku shares for a price of 240¥ per unit, nuyen that will go directly in Renraku pocket.

Joint venture: subsidiary created and owned by several companies, usually for an alliance on a particular project.

The UCAS Army wants a new mobile radar vehicle. They really like the mobility of Ares Arms' Oedipus, but Esprit Industries' radar has a better range. The Pentagon refuses both vehicle and suggest the rival companies to work together.
The joint-venture AE Corporation is chartered, with 50% of the stock owned by Ares Arms and 50% by Esprit Industries. AECorp. buys to Ares Arms the license for its vehicle chassis, to Esprit the license for its radar system, and starts producing a mobile radar vehicle fulfilling the UCAS Army wishes.

Listed company: company whose stock is traded on a stock exchange.

With some insider info in head, the Keynesian Kid want to buy stock in two companies that will greatly benefit from a shadowrun in a short time. The first, Mesametric, is a listed company, so he just contact a major brokering firm operating on Cheyenne or Boston Stock Exchanges to buy some shares. The second, Wind Speaker Corporation, is not a listed company, so the Kid has to find by himself a stockholder ready to sell and get in touch with him personally.

Megacorporation: corporation benefiting from business extraterritoriality per the Business Recognition Accords.

Merger: two corporations uniting to form a single one. In some case, the process can be similar to a takeover. A merger is generally defined by a similar size of the two corporations and a power in the new company equally shared between the management and shareholders of the two companies.

On the behalf of Richard Villiers, Cambridge Holdings and Villiers International will merge to create a new megacorporation. A third company is created, Novatech Incorporated and issues stock it exchange with the shareholders of Cambridge Holdings and Villiers International own stock. Both Cambridge Holdings and Villiers International are now subsidiaries of Novatech Inc.
Shareholders of Global Oil and UCAS Steel decide to merge the two companies. With UCAS Steel agreement, Global Oil offers to exchange stock it issues in exchange for UCAS Steel stock. All the UCAS Steel shareholder who agree becomes Global Oil shareholders, and with enough stock, UCAS Steel becomes a subsidiary of Global Oil. To complete the process and please the new associates, Global Oil nominate several of UCAS Steel manager in top positions.

Offer: indication of a will to sell.

Option: right to buy or sell shares at a certain price and a certain date.

Parent company: company controlling a subsidiary.

Private company: company with no obligation of informing its shareholders of its results.

Aztechnology is a private company. Not only it doesn't have to publish a list of its shareholders or board directors, but keep these information completely secret. In theory, they don't have to publish the financial results (except for the Corporate Court own use) but do so as to maintain people confidence in working with or investing in Aztechnology or its subsidiaries. Some of those subsidiaries are themselves public companies.

Portfolio: set of shares and bonds owned by somebody.

Proxy right: right to use the vote associated to a share without owning that share.

Public company: company required to publicly inform its shareholders of its results through a general assembly.

Share: single unit of a stock.

Shareholder: person or corporation owning one or several shares.

Shareholders Assembly: in a public company, gathering of the shareholders, generally occurring a minimum of once per year. The assembly elects President, CEO and members of the board of directors. Each shareholder's vote is valued by the number of shares he/she/it owns.

Stock: titles representing the ownership of a company.

Stock Exchange: place or matrix host in which stock is traded.

Subsidiary: company controlled by a parent company.

Takeover: acquisition of a company's stock in order to control it. Control is usually achieved with the control through shareholding and proxy rights of half plus one of the total number of votes.

Warrant: right to acquire a share issued at a certain price and after a certain date.

[Phylos Fett]

Isn't this in Corporate Download?

[Nath]

Corporate Download touched the very basic stuff about shareholders and subsidiaries, but nothing about more advanced stuff like consortium, merger or warrant. It made sense for me to repeat some things instead of having the Corporate Download on the knees to read the rest of the glossary on the screen.

[Phylos Fett]

That's cool, NMath. I just have both, and wasn't sure...

[Abstruse]

I still think Shadowfiles is better than Download personally. Download has tons of info about the different megas, more than Shadowfiles did, but Shadowfiles explained so much more about the corporate world in general. More informative than an Intro to Business 1301 class. If you want to add depth to the business world of your game, DEFINATELY track down a copy.

The Abstruse One

[Buzzed]

STOCK JARGON.

Ticker - The numbers you see while the stock market is in action.
Example ticker: ZZZ 36-36.25

Symbol: The 3 or 4 letters that represent the corporation name. (ZZZ)
Bid - The highest price at which the stock is currently willing to be bought. The first number. (36)
Ask - The lowest price at which the stock is currently willing to be sold. The second number. (36.25)

OTHER JARGON.

Overturn - The average employment time period.
Shrink - Losses accumulated from theft, damage, injury, and lawsuits.

[Spookymonster]

There's lots of real world sources for this data too. My personal favorite is the glossary at www.fool.com, home of the Motley Fool.

Unfortunately, I can't think of any internet resources that would make this financial stuff appear 'exciting' by any means. However, there are some very Shadowrun-ish events currently appearing in the financial world right now - Peoplesoft/Oracle/JDEdwards, for one. Peoplesoft makes a bit to buy JDEdwards, but Oracle says they'll buy Peoplesoft and disolve both companies after acquisition, just to eliminate the competition. To prevent this from happening, Peoplesoft is taking a Poison Pilll strategy; by increasing their bid for JDEdwards, they make it more costly for Oracle to try to buy Peoplesoft (or JDEdwards, for that matter). Their hope is that they'll become more of a burden than a boon to Oracle, and the bigger company will be forced to leave them alone (either by the government or by Oracle's shareholders). Of course, shelling out all this money comes at a heavy price; less funding available for R&D, Marketing, new facilities, etc. In the end, Oracle may have still succeeded in driving off their competition.

Were this to happen in the Sixth World, I would expect to see runners hired by Peoplesoft against Oracle. Blow up a CD manufacturing plant, kidnap the lead programmer's daughter and force him to delay the beta release of their new software, strong-arm a few major customers so that they cancel their contracts, etc. These 'unforseen expenses' will make new purchases less appealing to the board and it's stockholders.

I can also imagine Oracle hiring runners for B&E jobs to get the financial dirt on Peoplesoft's bid; how much :nuyen: do they have on hand? Are they already over their head? Maybe a few razorboys drop by the JDEdwards' next stockholders meeting, just to let them know that rejecting Peoplesoft's bid would be 'in their best interests'.

Lastly, I can see JDEdwards hiring runners under the false pretense that they're actually doing a run for Oracle against JDEdwards to find out what their R&D projects look like. The team breaks in to find a poorly-maintained facility. Computer records indicating that the company has been cooking the books for years, and they're hoping to sell out to Peoplesoft before anyone catches on. The runners think they've hit the jackpot, but when the Johnson offers less than half of the originally negotiated fee, the runners will feel obligated to walk with the data. Enter a 'unsolicited and independent' news reporter, who offers the team a mint if they fork over the data. After the broadcast, Oracle is forced by it's stockholders to walk away from the hostile bid. JDEdwards and Peoplesoft complete the original deal, and then release legitimate documentation showing that this 'damaging news report' is completely false. Exit our heroes, richer, but wiser. :)

Ah well...guess that's more that you really wanted. Sorry for rambling :).