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Aktiebolag (Swedish pronunciation:[ˈâktsɪɛbʊˌlɑːɡ], "stock company") is theSwedish term for "limited company" or "corporation". When used in company names, it is abbreviated as "AB" (inSweden), "Ab" (inFinland), or, rarely, "A/B" (dated), roughly equivalent to the abbreviationsCorp.,Ltd., andPLC. The state authority responsible for the registration ofaktiebolag in Sweden is theSwedish Companies Registration Office.
Allaktiebolag are divided into two categories:private limited companies andpublic limited companies. The name of a private limited company may not contain the wordpublikt ("public") and the name of a public limited company may not contain the wordprivat orpvt. ("private").[1]
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 500,000Swedish kronor and its shares can be offered to the public on thestock market.[1] Thesuffix "(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.[1]
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 ABL stipulates that parent companies and subsidiaries are separate legal persons and legal entities.[2]
Companies such asEA Digital Illusions CE AB,Ericsson AB,MySQL AB,Mojang AB,Spotify AB,Scania AB andHi3G Access AB use AB in their names. Other companies have included it in their abbreviated trading name, such asSaab AB (formerly Svenska Aeroplan AB),SSAB AB (formerly Svenskt Stål AB),HIAB (Hydrauliska Industri AB),ESAB (Elektriska Svetsnings-Aktiebolaget) andLKAB (Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag).
The termaktiebolag is also used inFinland Swedish, alongside theFinnishosakeyhtiö; the choice and ordering of terms tends to indicate the company's primary working language.