B. Make your own business card in English. Exchange your business cards in class and speak about the person whose card you got

3. FORMS OF BUSINESS

 

1. General Comprehension What business forms do you know? Read the text to find out about the existing business forms and their peculiarities.

Word

(the) Board (of directors) business form

Executive team holding company

Limited liability managing director private limited company

Public limited company

Sister company sole trader

Am. sole proprietor sole proprietorship

Stock certificate stock exchange tax benefit

Combinations

совет директоров фирмы

организационно-правовая форма (бизнеса)

директорат

компания-держатель; компания-учредитель

ограниченная ответственность

управляющий

частная компания с ограничен­ной ответственностью

открытое акционерное общество (ОАО)

филиал

частный предприниматель

индивидуальное частное

предприятие акционерный сертификат фондовая биржа налоговые преференции

Business Forms

Company is an organization that makes or sells goods or services in order to get money. Business enterprises usually take one of three forms: individual (sole) proprietorship, partnerships, or limited companies (corporations).

The legal form of business that has only one owner is known as sole proprietorship. Most businesses are of this type. When a person decides to start up an independent business that person is entirely responsible for its success or failure. Any profits go to the owner; any losses are his or her responsibility as well. One of the advantages of sole proprietorship is that an owner can make decisions quickly and decisively without having to consult others. However, there are disadvantages to this form of business organization. A sole proprietorship ends with the incapacity or death of the owner. Also, since it is dependent upon the amount of money the owner has saved or can borrow, usually it does not develop into a large-scale enterprise.

A partnership is an association of two or more persons to carry on a business for profit. This form of business is owned by the partners themselves; they may receive varied shares of the profits depending on their investment or contribution. Whenever a member leaves or a new member is added, the firm must be reconstituted as a new partnership. Partnerships have more advantages than sole proprietorship if one needs a big capital or diversified management. Like sole proprietorship they are easy to form and often get tax benefits from the government. Partnerships have certain disadvantages too. One is limited liability. It means that each partner is responsible for all debts and is legally responsible for the whole business. Another disadvantage is that partners may disagree with each other.

The third business form is the limited company which is often referred to as a corporation. A business corporation is operated by individuals whose shares of ownership are represented by stock certificates. A person who owns a stock certificate is called a stock-holder. There are several advantages of the corporate form of ownership. The first is the ability to attract financial resources. The next advantage is that a corporation attracts a large amount of capital it can invest in plants, equipment and research. And the third advantage is that a corporation can offer higher salaries and thus attract talented managers and specialists.

Certain very large companies are registered as public limited companies (pic). They raise capital by selling shares to the general public, and theseshares are listed on the Stock Exchange. A company which cannot offerits shares to the general public is known as a private limitedcompany (Ltd). This category of companies includes by far thebiggest proportion of companies one is likely to come across.

Pronunciation

A. Underline the main stress in each word. Practise saying the
words.

Organization, corporation, contribution, diversified, disadvantage.

B. Circle the word in each line which has a different vowel sound.
Listen to the teacher and check your answers.

1) company plant consult money

2) borrow profit stock order

3) sole loss own whole

4) liability entirely varied proprietor

Word Study

A. Find international words in the text and write them out. Learn
their correct pronunciation.

B. Give Russian equivalents to the following word combina­
tions:

in order to get money; to take one of three forms; a legal form of business; to be entirely responsible for; to be one's responsibility; to make decisions without having to consult others; to develop into a large-scale enterprise; to carry on a business for profit; to be owned by; diversified management; limited liability; a corporate form of ownership.

C. Match the words from A with their opposites from B.

 

A	В
success, constitute, limited, borrow, save, corporate, dependent, large-scale, agree, decisive, profit, buy, legal, advantage, diversified, end	unlimited, loss, sell, unified, begin, disadvantage, illegal, failure, sole, spend, independent, reconstitute, disagree, lend, indecisive, small-scale

D. Match the words from A with their synonyms from B.

В

entirely, sole, income, proprietorship, stockholder, enterprise, diversified, entrepreneur, salary, own, amount, manager, specialist, shares

businessman, shareholder, varied, stocks, possess, individual, head, profit, expert, company, wholly, wage, quantity, ownership

E. Complete the chart with the missing forms where possible.

 

Nouns	Verbs	Adjectives
limitation
		responsible
	invest
decision
	manage
		liable
profit
-	own
		developed/developing
	lose

4. Grammar Focus

Complete the sentences by using one of the words on the left and combining it with one of the prepositions on the right. Prepositions can be used more than once. If necessary, change the form of the words on the left.

 

carry end offer

refer responsible dependent

own disagree invest

for on to

with by in

1. Sole proprietors are entirely ........... the consequences of the

decisions they make. 2. If the owner of a sole proprietorship dies, his
business ........ him. 3. The profits of business partners .......... their

investment or contribution. 4.The business is a sole proprietorship and

is... andrun ... myfather. 5. He is relying on his son to ........... the

family business.6. I...... you — Ithink she's done a very good job.

7. The term "limitedcompany" ....... a company whose owners are

legally responsiblefor only a limited amount of its debts. 8. A corporation

possesses enough money to ......... plants, equipment and research.

9. Public limited companies ... their shares ... the general public.

Diving Deeper