Incorporator.com.au - Ordinary shares

GUIDANCE ABOUT CLASS OF SHARES

This is highly likely to be 'ordinary shares' given that the proposed company will be a 'one person company'.

Ordinary shares are by far the most common type of share. For example, the vast majority of shares listed for sale on the Australian Stock Exchange are ordinary shares.

Ordinary shares have no unusual rights attached to them, for example, special preferential voting or dividend rights which a preference share might have, or a right to redeem the share which a redeemable preference share might have. Shareholders of ordinary shares have the normal or ordinary rights as set out in various sections of the Corporations Act 2001 and various rights as developed by the courts over the last few hundred years.

If the company is to have any class of shares, other than ordinary shares, Incorporator recommends that the company adopt a written constitution setting out any special rights attaching to those shares. However, Incorporator will not prepare a written constitution for you - if you want the company to have a written constitution, Incorporator suggests that you engage a solicitor to prepare that written constitution for you. In the meantime, however, you can still carry on using Incorporator to assist you with all other aspects of the incorporation. Further, if a proprietary company, such as the company you propose forming, adopts a written constitution it need not, and should not, lodge a copy of the constitution with ASIC (the government companies' office).