''Aktiebolag'' (, " stock company") is the Swedish term for "

limited company In a limited company, the liability of members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. In a company limited by shares, the li ...

" or "

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

". When used in company names, it is abbreviated AB (in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

), Ab (in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

), or, rarely, A/B (dated), roughly equivalent to the abbreviations '' Ltd.'' and '' PLC''. The state authority responsible for registration of aktiebolag in Sweden is called the Swedish Companies Registration Office.

Sweden

All ''aktiebolag'' are divided into two categories:

private limited companies A private limited company is any type of business entity in "private" ownership used in many jurisdictions, in contrast to a publicly listed company, with some differences from country to country. Examples include the ''LLC'' in the United Sta ...

and

public limited companies A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company whose shares may be f ...

. The name of a private limited company may not contain the word ''publikt'' ("public") and the name of a public limited company may not contain the word ''privat'' or ''pvt.'' ("private").

Public

A public limited company (''publikt aktiebolag'') is legally denoted as "AB (publ.)" in Sweden or "Abp" in Finland. A Swedish public limited company must have a minimum share capital of 500,000 Swedish kronor and its shares can be offered to the general public on the

stock market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, ...

. The

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...

"(publ.)" is sometimes omitted in texts of an informal nature, but according to the Swedish Companies Registration Office, "the name of a public limited company must be mentioned with the term (publ.) after the business name in the articles of association and elsewhere", unless it is clearly understood from the company’s business name that the company is a public limited company.Limited Company. New company registration
. I
''Information about limited liability company''
, Bolagsverket (The Swedish Companies Registration Office). Retrieved 16 September 2008.

Private

For a private limited company in Sweden (''privat aktiebolag''), the minimum share capital is 25,000 Swedish kronor. The main Swedish statutes regulating limited companies are The Companies Act (''Aktiebolagslagen'' (ABL) 2005:551) and The Limited Companies Ordinance (''Aktiebolagsförordningen'' 2005:559). The law provisions in ABL stipulate that parent companies and subsidiaries are separate legal persons and legal entities.Action brought on 25 June 2008 — Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Sweden (Case C-274/08)(2008/C 236/10)
Official Journal of the European Union, 13 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008.

Examples

The abbreviation AB is seen in company names such as EA Digital Illusions CE AB, Ericsson AB, MySQL AB,

Mojang AB Mojang Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. The studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game ''Minecraft'', the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent ...

, Spotify AB, Scania AB, Hi3G Access AB, and originally,

Svenska Aeroplan AB Saab AB (originally , later just SAAB and Saab Group) is a Swedish aerospace and defence company, founded in 1937. Headquartered in Stockholm, the development and the manufacturing is undertaken in Linköping. Saab produced automobiles from 1 ...

(SAAB). Other companies have included this into their abbreviated trading name, for example SSAB AB (formerly Svenskt Stål AB), HIAB (Hydrauliska Industri AB), ESAB (Elektriska Svetsnings-Aktiebolaget) and LKAB (Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag).

Finland

The term ''aktiebolag'' is also used in Finland Swedish, alongside the Finnish ''osakeyhtiö''; the choice and ordering of terms tends to indicate the company's primary working language.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Swedish Companies Registration Office
Types of business entity Economy of Sweden Law of Sweden