What is the difference between a private company and a public company?

What is the difference between private limited company and a public limited company?

• Answer:

  Public limited companies have their shares listed on a stock exchange. This is not the case for the private limited company, whose shareholders are generally directors of the company, or connected to it in some way. This means that PLCs are able to raise significantly larger sums of capital than private limited companies. A public limited company must have a minium authorised share capital of £50,000 with allotted shares of at least that value, and a minimum of two members and two directors whilst there are no miniumu capital requirements for the private limited company and the minium number of directors is just one. Also the public limited company is subject to detailed company law requirements with regards to its shares, directors, annual general meetings, accounting and so on. For the private limited companies, there is much less red tape!