Starting a Business
6. How to Establish a Company
Authors: Staff Legal Eagle
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 06 Jul 2015
- You may establish your company in two main ways. You can choose to personally incorporate your own company or purchase a shelf company.
- The establishment of a company is often referred to as its 'incorporation'.
- In order to incorporate your new company you will need to lodge an application with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
- Upon receiving the application along with the relevant fee ASIC will:
- provide you with an Australian Company Number (ACN);
- register the company; and
- issue a certificate of registration.
- The company comes into existence from this first day of registration and remains in existence until it is deregistered.
- A 'shelf company' is a company that has already been 'pre-incorporated' but has not yet had any activity.
- Lawyers, accountants, business advisors or professional shelf company providers may establish a company in order to sell it to a person or group of persons who intend to start a company but who would prefer to avoid going through all the steps to set up a company from scratch.
- This can takes a lot of the complication away from establishing a company yourself.
- However it is still important that you understand how the company has been set up and that you are confident that a company structure will meet all of your business and personal needs.
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