Share of the Banque de Montreux, issued 20 November 1900. Société anonyme were common in Switzerland at this time.
The abbreviation S.A. or SA[lower-alpha 1] designates a type of limited company in certain countries, most of which have a Romance language as their official language and employ civil law. Originally, shareholders could be literally anonymous and collect dividends by surrendering coupons attached to their share certificates. Dividends were paid to whomever held the certificate. Since share certificates could be transferred privately, corporate management would not necessarily know who owned its shares – nor did anyone but the holders.
As with bearer bonds, anonymous unregistered share ownership and dividend collection enabled money laundering, tax evasion, and concealed business transactions in general, so governments passed laws to audit the practice. Nowadays, shareholders of S.A.s are not anonymous, though shares can still be held by a holding company in order to obscure the beneficiary.
Société anonyme in French (as used in French-speaking countries such as France (including French Polynesia, and New Caledonia) and Monaco; also in partially Francophone countries and/or nations with French as one of their official languages like Belgium (where it is equivalent to a naamloze vennootschap), Luxembourg (also identifiable in Luxembourgish as Aktiegesellschaft), Switzerland (where it is equivalent to an Aktiengesellschaft or a Società Anonima), as well as Haiti, Lebanon, and such African countries as Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco,[2] Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Algeria)
Société par actions in Canadian French
Società Anonima in Swiss Italian (in Italy replaced by Società per azioni, S.p.A., since 1942)
Sociedad Anónima or Sociedad por Acciones in Spanish
Mexican law also takes into account the variability of the corporate stock, resulting in most S.A. turning into Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable (S.A. de C.V.), or Sociedad Anónima Bursátil de Capital Variable (S.A.B. de C.V.) for publicly traded companies.
Mexico also has Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada de Capital Variable (S. de R.L. de C.V.), which is analogous to the limited liability company.
شركة مساهمة عامة ذات مسؤولية محدودة ش.ذ.م.م, Sharikah musāhamah ʿāmmah dhāt mas'ūliyyah maḥdūdah (lit. Public share company with limited liability) in Arabic
Dioničko društvo (d.d.) in Croatian and Bosnian
Акционерно дружество, Aktsionerno druzhestvo (АД) in Bulgarian
Акционерско друштво, Akcionersko društvo (АД) in Macedonian
Акціонерне товариство, Aktsionerne tovarystvo (AT) in Ukrainian
Publicly traded company ("public company") or Incorporated (Inc.) in the United States, though the former term does not appear in the names of business entities