Authorized Shares For example, a corporation with three owners may decide to authorize 1,000 shares and issue 250 shares to each owner (750 shares issued). This leaves 250 shares to issue to future investors or partners.
At this point, you may wonder what happens when a company has attempted to issue more shares than it has authorized. Make sure this doesn't happen! If it does occur, a company has breached any agreement with those investors, employees or other parties that have been “issued” the excess shares.
They are “authorized” because they fall within the maximum number of shares a company can sell ing to its corporate charter. They are “issued” because they have been sold. They are “outstanding” because they have been sold to the public (not to the owners or managers of the company).
Authorized shares are the total number of shares a company can legally issue, while issued shares are the number the company has issued to date. The number of authorized and issued shares may be the same or different, in which case there would be more authorized than issued shares.
Authorized stock is the max amount of shares that a company can issue. Generally, a company will not issue 100% of the authorized stock, so issued stock will be less than the authorized amount. Issued stock can be held by the company, held by employees, or held by the general public.
Can a Company Issue More Shares Than Authorized? No. A company is limited to issuing only the quantity of shares it's authorized to issue.