Shares & shareholders

Each company must have a least one share and one shareholder.

You need to provide:

• The full name and address of each shareholder. 
• The total number of shares for the company. 
• The number of shares held by each shareholder (share allocation).

Shareholders

First you will need to provide details for each shareholder - for example, their full name and address.  Other details will depend on the type of shareholders your company will have.

If one or more of the shareholders are also directors you can choose them from the list of Available directors.  Otherwise you can choose to add another person or entity as a shareholder.

Types of shareholders

• Person | For the shareholder type 'Person' you must provide a full name and residential address and advise whether the shareholder usually resides in New Zealand. 
• Registered New Zealand Entity | For a shareholder that is a 'Registered New Zealand Entity' begin entering the entity name or its registered number.  You will then be able to pick the entity from a list of possible matches.   
• Other Entity | Where the shareholder is an 'Other Entity' (for example, an overseas registered company) enter the full name and address of the entity.    

Notes 

• Section 87 of the Companies Act 1993 requires that every company must maintain its own share register.  The New Zealand companies register is not a company's share register.  The Companies Office is merely required by the Act to record shareholding details as part of the official record.
• Trusts as shareholders | Under the Companies Act 1993 unincorporated trusts such as family trusts cannot hold shares in a company because they are not separate legal entities.  If trusts are entered as shareholders, the application will be rejected.  Instead you should enter the trustees (including full names and residential addresses) as holding the shares jointly.  Trusts registered under certain acts of legislation (for example, the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 and the Maori Land Act 1993) are legal entities that can hold shares.

IRD number

If you chose to register for tax you also need to provide the IRD number for each New Zealand resident shareholder.
 

Share allocations

Once you have added the shareholder details you need to complete the share allocations - the number of shares held by each shareholder.

• A company must have at least one share.
• How the company's shares are held is reflected by share allocations. 
• A company can have one or more share allocation and a share allocation can have one or more shareholders.  
• If a share allocation has more than one shareholder the shares will be jointly owned by those shareholders.

The system will display one allocation but you simply add as many share allocations as you need.

The share allocation step is complete once all shares have been alloted.

Next step

Click on the Constitution button.