Shareholder agreements
Agree how the people who own a company vote, sell and share in it.
Govern how shareholders own, vote and sell their shares.
- Business / Legal document
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Key features
The company is a party
The company signs as well as the shareholders, so the parts that bind it, such as giving information, apply to it directly.
Board seats
A section for how many directors there are and the holding that earns a shareholder the right to appoint and remove one.
A list of reserved decisions
Issuing shares, borrowing, selling the business, changing what it does and paying a dividend are listed as needing shareholder approval, with a line for more.
First offer on sales and new shares
Before shares are sold or new ones are issued, they are offered to the other shareholders first, with blanks for the price and the time to accept.
Drag along on a sale of everything
A section for a sale of the whole company, with a blank for the share of the votes that can require the others to sell on the same terms.
About this document
A shareholders' agreement sits alongside a company's own governing documents and records how its shareholders will deal with each other: who sits on the board, which decisions need their approval, and what happens when someone wants to sell their shares.
This blank form is signed by the company itself as well as by two shareholders. You complete the share numbers, thresholds and prices by hand. It has blanks where a threshold or price belongs, because those are for the shareholders to agree, not for a form to choose.
Is this document right for you?
Useful when
- A company has more than one shareholder and nothing in writing between them
- A new investor is joining and the existing owners want their arrangement settled
- You want to agree what happens when a shareholder stops working for the company
Commonly used by
- Closely held companies
- Startups with several founders
- Family businesses with more than one owner
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Alternatives
These are separate documents, for different jobs.
- Founder agreementsAgree roles, equity and decisions between co-founders.View document
- Company bylawsThe internal rules a corporation is governed by.View document
- Share issuance documentsIssue new shares and record who receives them.View document
- Ownership and equity documentsRecord who owns what share of the company.View document
When to use this
- After incorporating, when the founders want something more detailed than the company's articles
- Before an outside investor buys in
- When a shareholder wants to leave and the others want to control who buys
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More in Shareholder & Ownership
- Founder agreementsAgree roles, equity and decisions between co-founders.View document
- Ownership and equity documentsRecord who owns what share of the company.View document
- Share issuance documentsIssue new shares and record who receives them.View document
- Equity-compensation documentsGrant employees shares or options as part of their pay.View document
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Questions
About the shareholder agreements
No. It sits next to them. The form says that if the two conflict the shareholders will vote so the agreement is given effect, but how that works in your state is something to confirm with a lawyer.
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