A company is defined as a body of persons combined for a common, commercial purpose, authorised to act as an individual person. Thus, a company can comprise of a player, a group of players, or one or more players and one or more companies.

A company must have a unique name. The name of a company can change at any time. It is possible to use the same or a similar company name from round to round to preserve your brand or reputation. If you would like to do so, you should establish a trademark, which in the game is a short string of letters that the names of all of your companies must start with. If you choose to set a trademark, the names of your companies will be appended with a ™ mark.

A company can declare its commercial purpose through its name, or more properly, a mission statement.

Companies can be used to run businesses, trade shares, speculate in real estate, manage apartment buildings, borrow or lend through bonds, chase patents, or do some or all of these things.

Every company is a publicly listed company with shares tradeable on the sharemarket.

The liability of shareholders are generally limited to the amount of subscribed capital. However, for game play reasons, the chair can be fined in the event of a bankruptcy or a loan default.

As a rule, a player can only create and control one company at a time.

The act of creating a company requires $25,000 of investment capital. The $25,000 starting capital attracts a matching $75,000 from small shareholders. This means a new company starts with $100,000 in capital and the player starts with 25% as the principal shareholder and small shareholders hold the remaining 75%.

You can buy out your own company in a so-called management buy out or MBO and keep the company in private hands -- that is to say, own 100% of the company.

You can acquire other companies and other players can acquire yours through the sharemarket. Hostile takeovers are a part of the game play.