Standard Companies: New Company Information

Intellectual property, domain names, websites etc.

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:26:00 +1200

Domain names, trademarked brands and company names all form part of your companies intellectual property, these are considered assets of the business and along with the value of your customer base and potential future sales are a key part of the goodwill portion of your business when you sell it.

When registering a company it is a good idea to consider the other things you could be registering as well to add to the value of your intellectual property and prevent others from registering similar or identical brands to your company name.

Domain Names today are a key asset of most businesses, at a minimum you should be registering your New Zealand (.co.nz) and International (.com) domains if you plan to trade internationall.

Even if you do not want to setup a website initially, registering domain names gives you a professional email address (@youcompanyname rather than @hotmail or @xtra) and protects your name from others who may want to benefit from your brand.

Also consider Trademark applications for any trading names or brands you are going to promote along with your company name, logos and slogans, this will prevent other companies (at least in NZ) from benefiting from your branding.

Standard Companies and PumpCMS (the fantastic team who set this CMS website up for us) can assist you with all your domain name needs at the same time you register your company, just let us know which domains you would like to register and we will get this organised for you.

Source: Intellectual property, domain names, websites etc.

Company Registers

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:18:15 +1200

A company is sometimes called a “legal person” because it has many of the
rights and obligations of a real person. For example, it can own property,
operate a bank account, sue people, shift to Australia and decide to change
jobs. It can also marry [see amalgamations] and commit suicide [see de-
registration].

But the company is nothing like a person of course. It does not exist at all,
except as:

a description of it, contained in the Company Registers, and
list of its decisions, contained in the Minute Book.

The Company Registers include:

Directors’ Register – the names and addresses of each director
Directors’ shares Register – a record of the company’s shares which the directors have bought and sold
Directors “interests” Registers – two Registers which disclose whether Directors have any “interests” in other companies. [The purpose of these Registers is to disclose whether a Director might have a conflict of interest].
Directors’ Remuneration – which discloses any payments made to the director by the company
Directors’ use of company information – which has to be filled in whenever a director uses company information for his own purposes.
Share Registers – which detail the number and type of shares issued by the company, and whether the issue price has been paid.
Individual shareholders’ Registers – which keep track of each shareholder’s shares.
Address Registers – which record the company’s Registered Office, Postal Address and email address.

You must keep these Registers up to date

As time passes, details of your directors, shareholders and Company
addresses may change. If they do, you must tell the MED [over the internet
at their website www.companies.govt.nz] and you must update your own
Registers. There are penalties and fines for failing to keep your Registers
in order. Fines range up to $10,000 and they are payable by the directors
personally, not by the company

Where do you get the Registers from?

If we register your company, we also supply a full set of Registers, and
instructions on how to keep them updated.
If you have an existing company with no Registers, we can supply them –
see Other Services.

Source: Company Registers

New Company

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:13:45 +1200

New company registration is now far faster than it used to be. Not many years ago it took about a month to complete a new company registration. Now it takes a couple of hours.

In the old, slow days, it was common to form “Shelf Companies”. These were prepared in advance and [as their name suggests] sat on a shelf until somebody wanted a company in a hurry. At that point the name of the company would be changed, the director would resign, the shares would be transferred to the new owner and sometimes the number of shares would have to be increased or decreased. All those tasks made the sale of the company quite a lot more complicated than the original setup. But shelf companies were popular because people often wanted a company in a hurry.

That is no longer necessary. If you want us to, and if you assist, we can form a new company in an hour. So now, every company we supply is a new company, not a shelf company. It is registered with the name, directors, shareholders and shares that you want.

And it has all the Registers, opening minutes and information you need in order to comply with the law.

Not the information you wanted?Try:

Order Form, where you can order a new company from us, or

Register a Company, which explains the process of starting a new company

Source: New Company

New Company Name

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:07:00 +1200

You can call the new company anything you like, except that:

it must end with the word “limited”, or the abbreviation “ltd”
it can not be identical or almost identical to an existing company’s name
it can not include certain words [eg, Royal, Bank, Insurance], but exceptions are sometimes made
it can not be offensive

When you send us an order for a new company we can tell you almost
immediately whether your new company name will be allowed. If it is not, we
will email you and ask for another name.

Not the information you wanted? Try:

Order Form, where you can order a new company from us, or

Register a Company, which explains the process of starting a new company

More information about the above 4 points:

“Limited” – the MED will approve the new company name with the
word “Limited” in full, but you are entitled to abbreviate it to “Ltd” wherever
the company’s name is used.
“Identical or almost identical” -
Every new company’s name has to be unique. So if there is already a
company called “Angela’s Welding Services Ltd” you will not be able to use
that name for your company.
There is a problem here though. If you decide to call your company
“Angela’s Welding Services (2011) Ltd”, the MED will approve it. Adding
(2011) to the name means it is no longer almost identical to the existing
name. But if you use that name in a way which might confuse the public, the
original Angela could use the provisions of the Fair Trading Act to stop you.
Even if the MED approves a company name that does not guarantee that
you can use it safely. You should check that there are no similar businesses
in your area which have similar names to yours.
The name can not include certain words:
You will not be allowed to call your new company “Wellington Trading Bank
Ltd” unless you are actually running a Bank. Any proposed company name
which contains the word “Bank” will be refused until you get a letter from
the Reserve Bank allowing it. This leads to strange results. We regularly
apply to the Reserve Bank for permission to use such names as “Bank Street
Chiropody Ltd”. So if you ever walked past the Reserve Bank building in
Wellington and wondered what they did in there, now you know. We recently
had a name which included the word “Sun” turned down because the word
SUN contains the letters “UN”. The Companies Office presumably thought we
were claiming to be part of the United Nations Organisation. [Admittedly it was
a machine which made that decision, and a human being reversed it].
Not offensive:
You probably already know a lot of offensive words, so you can decide for
yourself what will be allowed.

Source: New Company Name

Register a Company

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:00:01 +1200

To register a company you go through the following process:

A name is chosen for the company.
The Ministry of Economic Development [MED] approves the name after a $10.33 filing fee is paid.
The proposed company’s details are filed at the MED – details include the names and addresses of directors and shareholders, the number of shares held by each shareholder, the company’s street and postal addresses, whether the company has a constitution, whether the company wants to get an IRD number, etc…
Another filing fee [this time of $153.33] is paid
The directors and shareholders file signed forms at the MED, consenting to their being directors and shareholders
The MED issues a “Certificate of Incorporation” which is the proof that the new company exists
The new company issues the shares to the shareholder(s) who signed consents
The new company creates a set of Registers, as required by the Companies Act 1993

The simplest way to register a company is to get us to do it for you, and you
do that by filling in the order form here.

Or check why get us to register your company. Having already registered
many thousand companies, we can do it in a few hours.

Source: Register a Company

NZ Companies Register

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 09:08:00 +1200

The NZ Companies Register is a list of all the companies which now exist,
or ever have existed in New Zealand. It is maintained by the Ministry of
Economic Development [MED], through a division called the Companies
Office.

When a new company is registered, the NZ Companies Register will
automatically list all the details of directors, shareholders and company
addresses. This information will be available to any member of the public who
wishes to search it.

Whenever a company’s details change [eg if a new director is appointed], the
company is required by law to update the NZ Companies Register. This is
done on the internet, at www.companies.govt.nz.

Despite the fact that the MED has this information, each individual company
is required to keep its own Registers of Directors, shareholders etc. Once
again, there are penalties if the company’s own Registers are not kept up to
date. It is particularly important for your company to keep a Share Register –
it is the only record of who owns the company.

When Standard Companies Ltd forms a company we supply all the required
Registers and also give detailed information on when and how to keep them
updated.

Not the information you wanted? Try:

Register a Company, which explains the process of starting a new company,
or
Company Registers, which explains the various records which your company
must have.

Source: NZ Companies Register