Public Limited Companies

Public limited companies or PLCs as they are also known, are generally larger profit orientated businesses.

In order to register and set-up such an entity, there is a requirement that it has an issued share capital of at least £50,000. Of this amount, a minimum of £12,500 must be paid to the company.

As most companies limited by shares are incorporated with anything from one share to one thousand, the above requirement for PLCs put them in to a different class of financing.

Some public limited companies are traded on the stock exchange; however this is not mandatory for a PLC.

The levels of administration involved in maintaining this type of company is greater than that of most other kinds of business. Full non-exemption statutory accounts need to be produced at the end of each year which might well affect the costs of production and compilation.

Most companies limited by shares are able to benefit from the exemption from filing full accounts. Instead they are merely required to submit an abbreviated balance sheet and minimal supporting notes.

This helps them to maintain a large degree of privacy over the financial achievement from the outside world.

Public limited companies, on the other hand must disclose a full profit and loss account, together with segmental analysis where appropriate. This might allow any interested party to have detailed figures and statistics on their performance and operations.

PLCs are generally regarded as more prestigious than their private limited company counterparts and this, in itself might prove beneficial to their business activities and the manner in which they are perceived by others.