S.A. (and variants) designates a type of corporation in countries that mostly employ civil law. Depending on language, it means anonymous company, anonymous partnership, or share company, roughly equivalent to public limited company in common law jurisdictions. It is different from partnerships and private limited companies.
Originally, shareholders could be literally anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were therefore paid to whoever held the certificate. Share certificates could be transferred privately, and therefore the management of the company would not necessarily know who owned its shares.
Like bearer bonds, anonymous, unregistered share ownership and dividend collection enabled money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general, so governments passed laws to eradicate the practice. Nowadays, shareholders of S.A.s are not anonymous, though shares can still be held by holding companies, in order to obscure the beneficial owner.
S.A. can be an abbreviation of:
Sociedade Anónima in Galician and European Portuguese (used in Portugal, Angola, Timor Leste, Macao, Mozambique and other Portuguese-speaking countries)
Sociedá Anónima in Asturian and Leonese
Sociedade Anônima in Brazilian Portuguese (used in Brazil)
Societat Anònima in Catalan
Société anonyme (SA) in French (as used in French-speaking countries such as France (including French Polynesia, and New Caledonia) and Monaco; also in partially Francophone countries and/or nations with French as one of their official languages like Belgium, Luxembourg, Quebec, Haiti, Switzerland, as well as Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Algeria and other African countries)
Società Anonima in Italian (since 1942 Società per Azioni, S.p.A.)
Sociedad Anónima or Sociedad por Acciones in Spanish; variations include Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable (S.A. de C.V.) and Sociedad Anónima Bursátil de Capital Variable (S.A.B. de C.V.) for publicly traded companies in Mexico
Mexico also has Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada de Capital Variable (S. de R. L. de C.V.)
Spółka Akcyjna in Polish
Societate pe Acțiuni in Romanian
It is equivalent in literal meaning and function to:
Naamloze vennootschap (N.V.) in Dutch
Ανώνυμη Εταιρεία, Anonymi Etaireia (A.E.) in Greek
Perseroan Terbatas Terbuka (P.T. Tbk.) in Indonesia
Berhad (Bhd.) in Malaysia
Anonim Şirket (A.Ş.) in Turkish
It is equivalent in function to:
Shoqëri Aksionare (Sh.a.) in Albanian
(.شركة مساهة عامة ذات مسؤولية محدودة (ش.ذ.م.م in Arabic
Dioničko društvo (d.d.) in Croatian and Bosnian
Акционерно дружество, Aktsionerno druzhestvo (АД) in Bulgarian
Акционерско друштво, Aktsionersko drushtvo (АД) in Macedonian
Société anonyme cambodgienne (S.A.C.) in Cambodia
Akciová společnost (a.s.) in Czech
Aktieselskab (A/S) in Danish
Société anonyme égyptienne (S.A.E.) or (.شركة مساهمة مصرية (ش.م.م in Egypt
Osakeyhtiö (Oy) in Finnish
Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in German
Részvénytársaság (Rt) in Hungarian
Hlutafélag in Icelandic
Public Limited (LTD.) in India
Public limited company (plc) in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and several Commonwealth countries
Kabushiki Gaisha (K.K.) or 株式会社 in Japan
주식회사 in Korea
Société anonyme laotienne (S.A.L.) in Laos
Akcinė bendrovė (AB) in Lithuanian
Akciju Sabiedrība (AS) in Latvian
Aksjeselskap (AS) in Norwegian
Акционерное общество, Aktsionernoye obshchestvo (AO) in Russian
Деоничарско друштво, Deoničarsko društvo (d.d.), or Акционарско друштво, Akcionarsko društvo (a.d.) in Serbian
Akciová spoločnosť (a.s.) in Slovak
Delniška družba (d.d.) in Slovene
Aktiebolag (AB) in Swedish
Акціонерне товариство, Aktsionerne tovarystvo (AT) in Ukrainian
Publicly traded company in the United States, though that term does not appear in the names of business entities
