There are hundreds of thousands of joint-stock companies in the world. An old and well-known joint-stock company is the British East India Company. A joint-stock company, commonly shortened to JSC, is a type of corporation or partnership involving two or more individuals that own shares of stock in the company. Certificates of ownership, or "shares," are issued by the company in return for each financial contribution, and the shareholders are free to transfer their ownership interest at any time by selling their shareholding to others. The main advantage of a JSC is that they potentially have access to large sums of money that can be invested in the business. There are different types of JSCs and these include Private Limited Companies, whereby the shares are not open to the public to buy and are limited to company directors. A Public Limited Company does the opposite and all shares are openly for sale for any member of the public to buy.
