What is a “Subscription Rights Offering” of a stock one owns?
After a company goes public, if it wants to raise more money, then it does this by secondary public offering or rights issue. In subscription rights issue gives the right to existing share holders to buy new shares at equal proportion. So if every one buys, they maintain the same percentage of ownership. Generally the pricing is at discount to current market price. Not sure why the price is high, unless the price for this stock fell sharply recently.
The short answer, probably not much.  Unless you have a controlling interest in the company.  If at least 50%+1 of the shareholder votes are in favor of the dilution then it can be done.  There are some SEC rules that should protect against corporate looting and theft like what the Severin side is trying to make it appear as happened. However it would appear that Severin did something stupid.  He signed away all of his voting right to someone who would use them to make his rights basically worthless.  Had he kept his head in the game he could probably have saved himself.  But he didn't. If your average startup started issuing lots of stock and devaluing existing shares significantly then I would expect it would be harder to find investors willing to watch as their investment dwindled.  But if you are issuing a limited amount stock to get leverage to grow bigger then it is worth it.  In the .com bubble there were quite a few companies that just issued stock to buy other companies.  Eventually most of these companies got delisted because they diluted them selves to much when they were overvalued. Any company not just a startup can dilute its shares.  Many if not most major companies issue stock to raise capital.  This capital is then generally used to build the business further and increase the value of all shares.  Most of the time this dilution is very minor (<.1%) and has little if any impact on the stock.  There are rules that have to be followed as listed companies are regulated by the SEC.  There are less regulations with private corporations.  It looks like the dilution was combined with the buyout of the Florida company which probably contributed to the legality of the dilution.     With options they are generally issued at a set price.  This may be higher or lower than the reported sell price of the stock when the option is issued.  The idea is over time the stock will increase in value so that those people who hold on to their options can buy the stock for the price listed on the option.  I worked at an ISP start up in the 90's that made it pretty well.  I left before the options were issued but I had friends still there that were issued an option at $16 a share the value of the stock at the time of the issue of the option was about 12.  Well the company diluted the shares and used them to acquire more ISP's unfortunately this was about the time that DSL And cable internet took off so the dial up market tanked.  The value eventually fell to .10 they did a reverse split and when they did the called in all options.  The options did not have a positive cash value at any time.  Had RMI ever made it big then the options could have been worth millions.  There are some people from MS and Yahoo that were in early that made millions off of their options.  This became a popular way for startups to attract great talent paying peanuts.  They invested their time in the business hoping to strike gold.  A lot of IT people got burned so this is less popular among top talent as the primary compensation anymore. I don't think that you will be able to find a list of every owner for a given stock. There are probably very few people who would know this. One source would be whoever sends out the shareholder meeting mailers.  I suspect that the company itself would know this, the exchange to a lesser extent, and possibly the brokerage houses to a even lesser extent. Consider these resources: A company is basically divided into shit the company owns (assets) and shit the company owes to people (liabilities). So what about ownership? Ownership is called equity and on a simplistic level equity = asset - liabilities. But a better view of that should be asset = liabilities + equity. Which means a company's assets  is separated into things owned by debtors (e.g. Banks) and things owned by owners(founders and you). So when you are offered one percent, you are basically owning one percent of the company.   Not the best explanation, but should be a simplified one.   Here's where the options come in. When you are offered options. That means you have the option of redeeming the shares at a lower price than market. However these options are not usually immediately redeemable, there's usually a minimum amount of time you have to work at a company to be able to use these options. This period is called the vesting period. If you hold at least $2,000 of a company's shares for at least a year you can submit a proxy filing -- a stockholder proposal at the  shareholders' meeting.   Then you can use the media to agitate around that proposal.  (See Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, mentioned here as well). Companies have been known to bow to media pressure around minority shareholder proposals.  The guidelines for proxy filings are here: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&amp;sid=47b43cbb88844faad586861c05c81595&amp;rgn=div5&amp;view=text&amp;node=17:3.0.1.1.1&amp;idno=17#17:3.0.1.1.1.2.82.201  Buying enough shares to assume control of a major money center bank is not possible, regardless of the amount of money you can raise (remember: there are poison pill provisions, not to mention the fact that the more shares you want to buy, the higher the price will be).   tl;dr: The way to do what you're trying to do is not by accumulating shares but by using the media. You need $2,000. I don't actually have any of this stock. Apparently, it's quite common strategy This is called naked short selling. It's not illegal per se, but there can be some major penalties so you should call your broker and ask them these questions. Intentionally naked short selling is not looked upon favorably. They'll probably try to recommend you a safer shorting system by which: What you will probably get is an option to buy, for £10,000, £10,000 worth of stock. If the stock price on the day your option is granted is £2.50, then that's 4,000 shares. Companies rarely grant discounted options, as there are tax disincentives. The benefit of the stock option is that when you exercise it, you still only pay £10,000, no matter what the 4,000 shares are now worth. This is supposed to be an incentive for you to work harder to increase the value of the company. You should also check the vesting schedule. You will typically not be able to exercise all your options for some years, although some portion of it may vest each year. Stock is a part ownership of a business. First there has to be a business that people want to own part of because they expect to make a profit from that ownership.  Nobody is going to be interested if the business isn't worth anything.  In other words: sure, you could try to start a movie production house to make this film and others... But unless you are already a major player AND already have a lot of money invested in the studio, forget it. This isn't GoFundMe or Kickstarter. Nobody is going to buy stock because they want a copy of the DVD that you promise will be available in two years' time. All shares of the same class are considered equal. Each class of shares may have a different preference in order of repayment.  After all company liabilities have been paid off [including bank debt, wages owing, taxes outstanding, etc etc.], the remaining cash value in a company is distributed to the shareholders. In general, there are 2 types of shares: Preferred shares, and Common shares.  Preferred shares generally have 3 characteristics: (1) they get a stated dividend rate every year, sometimes regardless of company performance; (2) they get paid out first on liquidation; and (3) they can only receive their stated value on liquidation - that is, $1M of preferred shares will be redeemed for at most $1M on liquidation, assuming the corporation has at least that much cash left. Common Shares generally have 4 characteristics: (1) their dividends are not guaranteed (or may be based on a calculation relative to company performance), (2) they can vote for members of the Board of Directors who ultimately hire the CEO and make similar high level business decisions; (3) they get paid last on liquidation; and (4) they get all value remaining in the company once everyone else has been paid. So it is not the order of share subscription that matters, it is the class. Once you know how much each class gets, based on the terms listed in that share subscription, you simply divide the total class payout by number of shares, and pay that much for each share a person holds. For companies organized other-than as corporations, ie: partnerships, the calculation of who-gets-what will be both simpler and more complex. Simpler in that, generally speaking, a partnership interest cannot be of a different 'class', like shares can, meaning all partners are equal relative to the size of their partnership interest. More complex in that, if the initiation of the company was done in an informal way, it could easily become a legal fight as to who contributed what to the company. In the case you mentioned, where a private company owners will take debt with the purpose of  buying out other owners, is this done through a share repurchases program (I understand private companies issue them, even though it's rare)? Thank you for the insights. "I don't know if what they're doing is legal, however I believe you should be able to roll over the funds in your 401(k) to a self-administered IRA in which you can buy any stock you want. Is the company publicly traded?  Also, you say the stock is ""expected"" to surpass its previous high? By who? You? Spokespeople at the company? Certainly not the market itself, as it wouldn't have fallen so much otherwise. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you have to make your own judgments about these things, don't go by others' ""expectations""." Yes. Instead of paying a cash dividend to shareholders, the company grants existing shareholders new shares at a previously determined price. I'm sorry, but scrip issues are free (for all ordinary shareholders) and are in proportion to existing share holding. No payment is required from shareholders. So instead of having 10 $1 shares, the shareholder (if accepts) now could have 20 50p shares, if it was a one-for-one scrip issue. So in a sense, I can think of the employees / option-holders as another investor?   That makes sense - but many of the examples I'm finding online are still confusing me. Based on the example above, it seems like option-holders would be paying the same exercise price as the VC. Per [Andreesen Horowitz](https://a16z.com/2016/08/24/options-ownership/) this seems uncommon:   &gt; The exercise price of employee options — the price per share needed to actually own the shares — is often less than the original issue price paid by the most recent investor, who holds preferred stock.    In reality, would option-holders receive, say, 40% (using example above) for their $6m in exercise value due to receiving common stock, with the founder being diluted to even further? The company could use registered shares with restricted transferability, i.e. shares that require the consent of the issuing company for a change of ownership. These are treasury stocks allocated to the plan. If necessary, a company issues new shares (depending on a company it may require shareholders or only board approval). "In an IPO (initial public offering) or APO (additional public offering) situation, a small group of stakeholders (as few as one) basically decide to offer an additional number of ""shares"" of equity in the company. Usually, these ""shares"" are all equal; if you own one share you own a percentage of the company equal to that of anyone else who owns one share. The sum total of all shares, theoretically, equals the entire value of the company, and so with N shares in existence, one share is equivalent to 1/Nth the company, and entitles you to 1/Nth of the profits of the company, and more importantly to some, gives you a vote in company matters which carries a weight of 1/Nth of the entire shareholder body. Now, not all of these shares are public. Most companies have the majority (51%+) of shares owned by a small number of ""controlling interests"". These entities, usually founding owners or their families, may be prohibited by agreement from selling their shares on the open market (other controlling interests have right of first refusal). For ""private"" companies, ALL the shares are divided this way. For ""public"" companies, the remainder is available on the open market, and those shares can be bought and sold without involvement by the company. Buyers can't buy more shares than are available on the entire market. Now, when a company wants to make more money, a high share price at the time of the issue is always good, for two reasons. First, the company only makes money on the initial sale of a share of stock; once it's in a third party's hands, any profit from further sale of the stock goes to the seller, not the company. So, it does little good to the company for its share price to soar a month after its issue; the company's already made its money from selling the stock. If the company knew that its shares would be in higher demand in a month, it should have waited, because it could have raised the same amount of money by selling fewer shares. Second, the price of a stock is based on its demand in the market, and a key component of that is scarcity; the fewer shares of a company that are available, the more they'll cost. When a company issues more stock, there's more shares available, so people can get all they want and the demand drops, taking the share price with it. When there's more shares, each share (being a smaller percentage of the company) earns less in dividends as well, which figures into several key metrics for determining whether to buy or sell stock, like earnings per share and price/earnings ratio. Now, you also asked about ""dilution"". That's pretty straightforward. By adding more shares of stock to the overall pool, you increase that denominator; each share becomes a smaller percentage of the company. The ""privately-held"" stocks are reduced in the same way. The problem with simply adding stocks to the open market, getting their initial purchase price, is that a larger overall percentage of the company is now on the open market, meaning the ""controlling interests"" have less control of their company. If at any time the majority of shares are not owned by the controlling interests, then even if they all agree to vote a certain way (for instance, whether or not to merge assets with another company) another entity could buy all the public shares (or convince all existing public shareholders of their point of view) and overrule them. There are various ways to avoid this. The most common is to issue multiple types of stock. Typically, ""common"" stock carries equal voting rights and equal shares of profits. ""Preferred stock"" typically trades a higher share of earnings for no voting rights. A company may therefore keep all the ""common"" stock in private hands and offer only preferred stock on the market. There are other ways to ""class"" stocks, most of which have a similar tradeoff between earnings percentage and voting percentage (typically by balancing these two you normalize the price of stocks; if one stock had better dividends and more voting weight than another, the other stock would be near-worthless), but companies may create and issue ""superstock"" to controlling interests to guarantee both profits and control. You'll never see a ""superstock"" on the open market; where they exist, they are very closely held. But, if a company issues ""superstock"", the market will see that and the price of their publicly-available ""common stock"" will depreciate sharply. Another common way to increase market cap without diluting shares is simply to create more shares than you issue publicly; the remainder goes to the current controlling interests. When Facebook solicited outside investment (before it went public), that's basically what happened; the original founders were issued additional shares to maintain controlling interests (though not as significant), balancing the issue of new shares to the investors. The ""ideal"" form of this is a ""stock split""; the company simply multiplies the number of shares it has outstanding by X, and issues X-1 additional shares to each current holder of one share. This effectively divides the price of one share by X, lowering the barrier to purchase a share and thus hopefully driving up demand for the shares overall by making it easier for the average Joe Investor to get their foot in the door. However, issuing shares to controlling interests increases the total number of shares available, decreasing the market value of public shares that much more and reducing the amount of money the company can make from the stock offering."