I own ASPIRO shares (Jay Z's new company). Now that it is going private, what about my shares?
From the press release Based on Aspiro's closing share price of SEK 0.66 as of 29 January   2015, the Offer values each Aspiro share at SEK 1.05 and the total   value of the Offer at approximately SEK 464 million.[3] The Offer   represents a premium of..... It seems you will get cash. I can't explain the pop to 11. You don't have any option to keep the shares.
If the company is non-public, your hands are tied. Most startups have a Stock Option Plan with specific rules on the shares. In almost all cases, they have a Transferability clause preventing transfers of options and shares unless approved by the company (who would almost always say no). Additionally, they usually have a Right of First Refusal (ROFR), which states that if shares are going to be transferred, the company gets the chance to buy it first. In your case, the company may argue your friend would sell you the shares for free and the company would exercise their ROFR and buy back the shares for free. There is not much you can do in this case. You may be able to write up a contract between your friend and you, but it would be costly and possibly not worth the effort. You may be better off asking for a lump sum or some other sort of compensation. Additionally, your friend might want to be careful with this idea. You could potentially gain access to sensitive company tools/documents which could get them in a lot of trouble. It is a publicly traded company.  My interest is more in their motivation for  instituting the new policy.  *I* expect the stock to go up, I'm not being told that by someone else.  Thanks for looking out though :) You'll own whatever fraction you bought. To own the company (as in, boolean - yes or no) you need to buy 100% of the outstanding stock. RE controlling the company, in general the answer is yes - although the mechanism for this might not be so straight forward (ie. you may have to appoint board members and may only be able to do so at pre-set intervals) and there may be conditions in the company charter designed to stop this happening. Depending on your jurisdiction certain ownership percentages can also trigger the need to do certain things so you may not be able to just buy 50% - in Australia when you reach 20% ownership you have to launch a formal takeover bid. "When they entered Bankruptcy they changed their stock symbol from AAMR to AAMRQ. The Q tells investors that the company i in Bankruptcy. This i what the SEC says about the Q: ""Q"" Added To Stock Ticker Symbol When a company is involved in bankruptcy proceedings, the letter ""Q""   is added to the end of the company's stock ticker symbol. In most   cases, when a company emerges from bankruptcy, the reorganization plan   will cancel the existing equity stock and the old shares will be   worthless. Given that risk, before purchasing stock in a bankrupt   company, investors should read the company's proposed plan of   reorganization. For more information about the impact of bankruptcy   proceedings on securities, please read our online publication,   Corporate Bankruptcy. The risks are they never recover, or that the old shares have nothing to do with new company. Many investors don't understand this. Recently some uninformed investors(?) tried to get a jump on the Twitter IPO by purchasing share of what they thought was Twitter but was instead the bankrupt company Tweeter Home Entertainment. Shares of Tweeter Home Entertainment, a Boston-based consumer   electronics chain that filed for bankruptcy in 2007, soared Friday in   a case of mistaken identity on Wall Street. Apparently, some investors confused Tweeter, which trades under the   symbol TWTRQ, with Twitter and piled into the penny stock. Tweeter, which trades over the counter, opened at 2 cents a share and   jumped as much as 15 cents — or 1,800 percent — before regulators   halted trading. Almost 15 million shares had changed hands at that point, while the   average daily volume is closer to 150,000. Sometimes it does happen that the new company does give some value to the old investors, but more often then not the old investors are completely wiped out." The company may not permit a transfer of these options. If they do permit it, you simply give him the money and he has them issue the options in your name.  As a non-public company, they may have a condition where an exiting employee has to buy the shares or let them expire.  If non-employees are allowed to own shares, you give him the money to exercise the options and he takes possession of the stock and transfers it to you.  Either way, it seems you really need a lawyer to handle this. Whenever this kind of money is in motion, get a lawyer.  By the way, the options are his. You mean he must purchase the shares, correct? "Recently, I asked about what the company valuation is and how many   shares does my 4% represent.CFO told me that there is no point to talk   about ""shares"" or ""stock"" since the company is not public. Is it   right? No, it is wrong. Shares and stocks exist regardless of how they can be traded. Once a company is formed, there are stocks that belong to the owners in the proportion of the ownership. They may not exist physically, but they do exist on paper. As an owner of 5% of the company, you own 5% of the company stocks. I asked if my investor portion equity will be subjected under a   vesting schedule, CFO said yes. That doesn't make sense to me, because   I bought those 4%? Aren't those supposed to be fully vested? I agree   to my employee equity to be vested. Doesn't make sense to me either, since your money is already in their pocket. But I'm not sure if its illegal. If that's what is written in the signed contract - then may be its possible to have that situation. But it doesn't make much sense, because these shares are granted to you in return to your money, not some potential future work (as the 1% employee's portion). You already gave the money, so why wouldn't they be vested? Best to read the contract upon which you gave them your money, I really hope you have at least that and not just gave them a check...." Absolutely nothing, and it's not their call to make.  The shareholders will want to cut it into as many parts as they  can sell to recoup some of their lost investment. The judge will demand it even if they suddenly had a moral thought.  This will happen when this (and all those other companies) go under, refocuses priorities, or shuts down departments. The company doesn't necessarily have to go public. They can also be worth money if the company is acquired. Also keep in mind that even if the company does eventually go public, your shares can essentially be wiped out by a round of pre-IPO funding that gives the company a low valuation. You could ask: "I can see two possibilities. Either a deal is struck that someone (the company itself, or a large owner) buys out the remaining shares. This is the scenario @mbhunter is talking about, so I won't go too deeply into it, but it simply means that you get money in your bank account for the shares in question the same as if you were to sell them for that price (in turn possibly triggering tax effects, etc.). I imagine that this is by far the most common approach. The other possibility is that the stock is simply de-listed from a public stock exchange, and not re-listed elsewhere. In this case, you will still have the stock, and it will represent the same thing (a portion of the company), but you will lose out on most of the ""market"" part of ""stock market"". That is, the shares will still represent a monetary value, you will have the same right to a portion of the company's profits as you do now, etc., but you will not have the benefit of the market setting a price per share so current valuation will be harder. Should you wish to buy or sell stock, you will have to find someone yourself who is interested in striking a deal with you at a price point that you feel comfortable with." "Have the stock certificate in with a letter from the previous owner of the company from what I can tell in the letter these stocks were distributed from the owner himself stating ""after evaluation we have determined that your investment in this company is worth 10,000 shares at $1.00 a piece"" as well as I believe these shares were also acquired when the company was going through name changes or their company was bought" From what you have written, it could be a boiler room company. These operate with fancy website and have proper book keeping systems but are elaborate scams. How did you find about this broker. If there was a seller when you purchased the shares, there is no reason you can't be seller What are my options, if any, in how to deal with a buyout that forced me to sell, and accept cash only for my Florida USA company shares? Options are limited; Have a proxy battle if you care so much about the long-term prospects of facebook or sue him for negligence.  If you've been paying attention to google/facebook/yahoo's recent massive acquisition spree recently, you either wouldn't care so much about this deal or shouldn't be in the stock if you were concerned about Zuckerberg playing venture capital. Zuckerberg already cashed out $1B.  But that was planned from the get-go so he could diversify.  Employees with stock options still have to wait before they can cash out.  I think its 6 months after IPO. The best thing to do is pay off the car. Adding more variables to a negotiation with a car dealer (in this case, a trade in), is always going to go in their favor. This is why people recommend negotiating a price down first, before ever mentioning to the dealer you want to do a trade in or financing.