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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Danyel Woods)
Subject: Nationalising companies
Date: Sun Jun 23 04:20:01 2002
I've just been working out the background on something, and this whole issue
of 'nationalising' a corporation or company came up. I never took
economics, so would someone better-informed mind telling me exactly what
this entails? Intuitively, the term means that if Country X nationalised
Company Y, all of Y's assets inside that company - financial or physical -
within X's borders would become the property of X. Is this assumption
correct? How far down does the process go - if the company seized is a
holding company, and some of its subsidiaries are as well (layer upon layer,
drekcetera), do all the sub-sub-sub-sub-companies follow the leader, or is
it just the top company and maybe the first layer down? What about assets
outside X's national boundaries - are they also seized, or are they
orphaned? Does it make a difference if the company is privately owned,
rather than publicly traded?

Wishing he weren't so fascinated with minutae,
-> Danyel


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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Augustus)
Subject: Nationalising companies
Date: Sun Jun 23 05:15:01 2002
----- Original Message -----
From: "Danyel Woods" <matryoshka_01@*******.com>
To: <shadowrn@*********.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 1:18 AM
Subject: Nationalising companies


> Intuitively, the term means that if Country X
nationalised
> Company Y, all of Y's assets inside that company - financial or physical -
> within X's borders would become the property of X.

Up in Canada, we have plenty of companies that are government owned... they
call then "Crown Corporations" up here.

Anyhow... the simple answer to all your questions is... if somebody said
"Company Y is now owned by Owner Z" would you have any of these questions?

No.

And the only difference here is... the owner isn't a person, or another
company... but instead a country.

What does it all mean?

Pretty much nothing... the company works just as any company does... except
the owners are a government. Each tier will answer to the tier above it (So
if company Y owns 10 other companies, they all answer to Y as any company
would, as per how Y dictates them to be run [IE: Y might say to A, B and C
they have to pretty much live on a short leash and toe the line all the
time... but D can do whatever it wants within its charter])

Outside of the country would have no effect as well... Just as the
government of BC and some of its crown corporations own companies in the US,
it doesn't make any difference... just becomes another foreign owner.

So whats the scoop?

Usually this is done when a monopoly is some how involved... either to be
maintained or broken up.

Maintained: The country wants to run that industry/service sector in order
to keep the service affordable for the customers (ie: up here, electric
power is run by crown corporations, and thats partly why we pay about a
sixth the cost than the US does)

Broken Up: The government goes into business in order to break up a
monopoly. This would be done when a monopoly exists that the company
holding the monoloply didn't create intentionally and isn't trying to
maintain, but no viable companies are entering the market. (IE: an industry
that has very little profit, the government might form a company in order to
"compete" with the monopoly company [Though usually they just come in,
charge the same rates as the first company, and then take forever to raise
rates/costs in order to keep the first company from raising rates at will])

Oh well, enough of my ramblings, its like 2:15am here...


Clint
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Nationalising companies
Date: Sun Jun 23 05:25:00 2002
According to Danyel Woods, on Sun, 23 Jun 2002 the word on the street was...

> I've just been working out the background on something, and this whole
> issue of 'nationalising' a corporation or company came up. I never took
> economics

I'll note here that I didn't either, so most of what I'll say is guesswork,
too :)

> so would someone better-informed mind telling me exactly what
> this entails?

It seems to me that nationalizing a corporation means that the country
becomes the corporation's owner. IIRC, normally the owners are anyone who
owns shares in the corp, so if the government obtains all the shares then
the corp is nationalized. How that government goes about this depends on
the type of government, I suppose -- to put it simply, in a dictatorship
all it'll take is the government saying "Corp Y is now ours," while in a
democracy the government will have to buy Corp Y's shares from the
shareholders.

> Intuitively, the term means that if Country X nationalised
> Company Y, all of Y's assets inside that company - financial or physical
> - within X's borders would become the property of X. Is this assumption
> correct?

I'd think so.

> How far down does the process go - if the company seized is a
> holding company, and some of its subsidiaries are as well (layer upon
> layer, drekcetera), do all the sub-sub-sub-sub-companies follow the
> leader, or is it just the top company and maybe the first layer down?

I think that, if you own a company that owns another company, the second
company is yours as well. After all, you own _all_ the assets of the first
company, which includes the second one.

> What about assets outside X's national boundaries - are they also seized,
> or are they orphaned? Does it make a difference if the company is
> privately owned, rather than publicly traded?

The same thing would apply, I'd assume: it doesn't really matter who the
owner of something is, as long as they have a legal claim to it, which
means that foreign assets of a nationalized corp belong to the government
that now owns that corp. Now, for example, if the foreign country doesn't
recognize your government, then they may make things difficult for you, but
I'd think that under normal circumstances this wouldn't be an issue.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Little ever changes, if anything at all
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Richard Tomasso)
Subject: Nationalising companies
Date: Tue Jul 2 16:55:01 2002
>From: "Danyel Woods" <matryoshka_01@*******.com>
>Subject: Nationalising companies
>
>Intuitively, the term means that if Country X nationalised
>Company Y, all of Y's assets inside that company - financial or physical -
>within X's borders would become the property of X. Is this
>assumption correct?

Essentially, yes. It may also cover assets outside of the country as well,
depending on the structure of the corp and what parts of the company were
nationalized.

>How far down does the process go - if the company seized is a
>holding company, and some of its subsidiaries are as well (layer upon
>layer, drekcetera), do all the sub-sub-sub-sub-companies follow
>the leader, or is it just the top company and maybe the first layer
>down?

Tricky situation. If the holding company owned stock in the subsidiaries and
those assets were nationalized, then the state would have control of the
subs.

>Does it make a difference if the company
>is privately owned, rather than publicly traded?

There's little difference. Since most nationalization happens either (a) in
times of war, or (b) during a fascist or socialist or otherwise corrupt
regime, the private property is transfered to the state, usually without
compensation, so it merely changes how many people get hurt.

Sometimes, the assets are purchased, usually for what the gov't thinks is a
fair value (ie, less than the market price). The usual practice is
confiscation, sometimes preceded by charges of treason or tax evasion or
corruption or whatever is convenient.
Some places to check for real-world examples would be Cuba, post-colonial
Africa, Panama and I'm pretty sure the Nazis did it.


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Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (lightfinger)
Subject: Nationalising companies
Date: Tue Jul 2 18:50:01 2002
> >From: "Danyel Woods" <matryoshka_01@*******.com>
> >Subject: Nationalising companies
> >
> >Intuitively, the term means that if Country X nationalised
> >Company Y, all of Y's assets inside that company - financial or
physical -
> >within X's borders would become the property of X. Is this
> >assumption correct?
>
> Essentially, yes. It may also cover assets outside of the country as well,
> depending on the structure of the corp and what parts of the company were
> nationalized.
>

However, when this happens to most companies, they get the governments of
those extraneous companies to lock down those assets, so the nationalizing
government can't get to those funds.

> >How far down does the process go - if the company seized is a
> >holding company, and some of its subsidiaries are as well (layer upon
> >layer, drekcetera), do all the sub-sub-sub-sub-companies follow
> >the leader, or is it just the top company and maybe the first layer
> >down?
>
> Tricky situation. If the holding company owned stock in the subsidiaries
and
> those assets were nationalized, then the state would have control of the
> subs.
>

Usually, unless it is because of criminal corruption, all businesses on the
soil of the government get the same treatment simultaneously. Thus, there is
no guesswork who owns what, because the government owns it all.

If a business is nationalized because of corruption, though, chances are
many of the subsidiaries are buried under the famous Shadowrun pile of red
tape and shifty paperwork, so they get away until discovered.

> >Does it make a difference if the company
> >is privately owned, rather than publicly traded?
>
> There's little difference. Since most nationalization happens either (a)
in
> times of war, or (b) during a fascist or socialist or otherwise corrupt
> regime, the private property is transfered to the state, usually without
> compensation, so it merely changes how many people get hurt.
>

No difference whatsoever, except privately owned businesses usually end up
with their owners burnt at the stake, as an 'enemy of the people'.

> Sometimes, the assets are purchased, usually for what the gov't thinks is
a
> fair value (ie, less than the market price). The usual practice is
> confiscation, sometimes preceded by charges of treason or tax evasion or
> corruption or whatever is convenient.
> Some places to check for real-world examples would be Cuba, post-colonial
> Africa, Panama and I'm pretty sure the Nazis did it.
>

The Nazis confiscated businesses owned by the Jews, Communists, and gypsies.
Zimbabwe is a very current example of a government trying to take over all
the farmland owned by the white farmers still in that country...accusing
them of violating the law because they are *gasp* growing food for the
starving nation.

--Lightfinger

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