A shareholder is ... How does a shareholder differ from an investor?

A shareholder is a natural or legal person, including a joint-stock company or a foreign company that does not have the status of a legal entity, but has a civil legal capacity that corresponds to the legislation of a foreign state. In the person of a shareholder, the Russian Federation, its entity or municipal entity, which owns one or at the same time several shares in the capital of the joint-stock company, may act.

Shareholders and management

A shareholder is a person who, together with other persons who have this status within the company, is a representative of the company's management body. Any decisions within the organization are taken at the joint stock company, both on the next and on an extraordinary one. The volume of a shareholding determines the rights of shareholders in relation to the company. This can be both the right to nominate a candidate to the board of directors, and the right to bring the issue to the agenda of the general meeting. The size of the shareholding in any way does not affect the right of the shareholder to participate in the meeting and the right to receive dividends. Dividends are calculated in accordance with the size of the block of shares, but only if the decision to pay them was taken at a scheduled meeting.

Investors and management

The investor can be both a legal entity and an individual that invests its capital in investment projects. The investor is more interested in projects that are able to minimize risks. Participants in the joint-stock company are interested in promoting projects to increase dividends by actively participating in their development. The investor does not have this right. He simply considers the project, analyzing its actual state and prospects, makes a decision.

What are the shareholders?

A shareholder is the owner of certain shares, the type of which determines its membership in a particular category. You can distinguish:

• Owner of ordinary shares;
• The owner of shares of a privileged type.

Depending on the volume of assets, the following categories are distinguished:

• The only shareholder who owns 100% of the shares;
• Majority or large, which owns the predominant package of securities that gives it the right to participate in the management of the JSC;
• Minority shareholder, he owns less than 50% of voting shares;
• A retail shareholder is a person who owns the minimum amount of shares that allows only to participate in the general meeting and gives the right to receive dividends.

If there is only 1% of shares, an individual or legal entity already has the full right to participate in the selection of candidates for the company's board of directors. As for the investor, no matter how much he has invested in the project or in the company, he will not receive this right. The maximum similarity between the two participants of the financial market can be seen only if you compare the investor and the retail shareholder. In this case, the latter will have a certain advantage in the aspect of the right to participate in the general meeting.

The difference in capabilities

If you consider shareholders and investors in terms of possible prospects for earning, you can talk about the availability of more diverse tools for the latter. The investor has everything necessary for investing not only in joint-stock companies, but also in precious metals, currency, securities, including shares, but without the right to take part in making decisions on the company's activities in which he invested. It is worth mentioning that in case of bankruptcy of the project, the investor does not receive anything. A shareholder has every right to claim his share, in accordance with the shareholding, counting on the capital of the organization, which remained after the payment of all debts. This right falls not only in the material base of the enterprise, but also in the property on its balance sheet (equipment, machinery, real estate, etc.).

Shareholders and investors are striking similarity in the example of Gazprom shares

Gazprom shareholders and people who decided to invest their money in a large Russian company are essentially the same people, but only if we consider working with small capitals. Investments can be very different, including investing in buying shares, which determines the presence of colossal similarities. The shareholders' meeting for shareholders and investors in parallel are held systematically, but whether to participate in them or not, this is an individual decision of each. Possessing a minimum share of the rights to own a company, a natural or legal person can not influence changes in the rules of its work. Shareholders of Gazprom (and in parallel investors) purchase assets either through the bank, or with the support of a brokerage company, or on the MICEX and RTS exchanges. Small capital investors and shareholders in most situations do not expect payment of dividends, decisions on the implementation of which are adopted at the meeting. They catch the moment of a rise in price of shares and sell them, earning on a price difference. This trend is relevant only for small shareholders and investors. Large participants in this market segment have larger plans and goals.

What is the difference between a shareholder and an investor of Sberbank?

As in the situation with Gazprom, the difference between small shareholders and investors is absent, since investment in the country's largest financial institution is possible only through the purchase of shares, which automatically transfers the financial market participant from one category to another. Shareholders of Sberbank, who own preferred shares that do not provide for access to participation in the meeting, can be safely called investors in the full sense of this concept. Shareholders of Sberbank, having access to meetings and acquiring assets to participate in the work of the financial institution, are guided by long-term prospects. Modern investors, after the global crises of recent decades, prefer investing in a project with a short payback period, not more than 2-3 months.

Shareholder as one of the sub-categories of investors

The role of an investor can be assigned to both an individual and a legal entity that can manage not only their own, but also attracted funds. When you use your capital, the investor is called an individual. If the latter uses the raised funds in his work, he gets the status of institutional. There is a division of investors into direct and portfolio. Portfolio sets as a goal the multiplication of capital. Shareholders are direct investors who invest money in the company's assets with the priority to gain certain powers in the aspect of its management.