II. Read the text to fulfil the tasks. Businesses in the USA may be organized as one of the following forms:

Businesses in the USA may be organized as one of the following forms:

• individual business

• general partnership

• limited partnership

• corporation

• alien corporation.

An individual business is owned by one person. A general partnership has got several owners. They all are liable for debts and they share in the profits. A limited partnership has got at least one general owner and one or more other owners. They have only a limited investment and a limited liability. A corporation is owned by persons, called stockholders. The stockholders usually have certificates showing the number of shares which they own. The stockholders elect a director or directors to operate the corporation. Most corporations are closed corporations, with only a few stockholders. Other corporations are owned by many stockholders who buy and sell their shares at will. Usually they have little interest in management of the corporations. Alien corporations are corporations of foreign countries. All the corporations are to receive their charters from the state authorities. The charters state all the powers of the corporation. Many corporations try to receive their charters from the authorities of the State of Delaware, though they operate in other states. They prefer the State of Delaware because the laws are liberal there and the taxation is rather low. Such corporations, which receive their charters from an outside state are called foreign corporations. All the corporations require a certificate to do business in the state where they prefer to operate.

There are several relationships that may grow up between business in Great Britain and the United States of America. They are as follows:

• takeovers

• mergers

• amalgamation

• integration

• combination

• absorption

etc.

No agreement has been reached among financial experts as to the precise difference in meaning between the terms. The most popular are takeovers and mergers. In a takeover one company buys a controlling interest in another company by acquiring at least 51% of its shares. The company does this by making a direct approach to the company's shareholders for their shares. The company intending to take over will not necessarily consult the company it is taking over. The Stock Exchange Council in London has drawn up a code of practice to regulate takeovers to prevent some abuses. One such abuse is secret dealing when a company wishes to take over secretly and buys its shares secretly. Another abuse is insider dealing thanks to information used for personal profit. With a merger, two or more companies involved will consult with each other previously. They try to make a certain agreement on their merger to the satisfaction of both companies.