A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a proportion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-invested in the business. The current year profit as well as the retained earnings of previous years are available for distribution; a corporation is usually prohibited from paying a dividend out of its capital. Distribution to shareholders may be in cash or, if the corporation has a dividend reinvestment plan, the amount can be paid by the issue of further shares or by share repurchase. In some cases, the distribution may be of assets.
A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically owned by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provision of credit, and other financial services. In several African countries, credit unions are commonly referred to as SACCOs.
The Desjardins Group is a Canadian financial services cooperative and the largest federation of credit unions in North America. It was founded in 1900 in Lévis, Quebec by Alphonse Desjardins. While its legal headquarters remains in Lévis, most of the executive management, including the CEO, is based in Montreal.
Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (mutual) or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, members of a mutual usually receive a "windfall" payout, in the form of shares in the successor company, a cash payment, or a mixture of both. Mutualization or mutualisation is the opposite process, wherein a shareholder-owned company is converted into a mutual organization, typically through takeover by an existing mutual organization. Furthermore, re-mutualization depicts the process of aligning or refreshing the interest and objectives of the members of the mutual society.
The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, commonly referred to as LO, is a national trade union centre, an umbrella organisation for fourteen Swedish trade unions that organise mainly "blue-collar" workers. The Confederation, which gathers in total about 1.5 million employees out of Sweden's 10 million people population, was founded in 1898 by blue-collar unions on the initiative of the 1897 Scandinavian Labour Congress and the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which almost exclusively was made up by trade unions. In 2019 union density of Swedish blue-collar workers was 60%, a decline by seventeen percentage points since 2006. A strongly contributing factor was the considerably raised fees to union unemployment funds in January 2007 made by the new centre-right government.
Axa S.A. is a French multinational insurance company. The head office is in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. It also provides investment management and other financial services.
RSA Insurance Group Limited is a British multinational general insurance company headquartered in London, England. RSA has major operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scandinavia & Canada. It provides insurance products and services in more than 100 countries through a network of local partners. It has 9 million customers. RSA was formed by the merger of Sun Alliance and Royal Insurance in 1996.
Caisse populaire acadienne ltée, operating as UNI Financial Cooperation, is a Francophone credit union based in New Brunswick, Canada whose members are primarily Acadians. UNI's administrative headquarters are in Caraquet on the Acadian Peninsula.
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Consumers' cooperatives often take the form of retail outlets owned and operated by their consumers, such as food co-ops. However, there are many types of consumers' cooperatives, operating in areas such as health care, insurance, housing, utilities and personal finance.
Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich A.G. was the central institution of the Raiffeisen Banking Group Austria (RBG). The central bank was merged with its subsidiary Raiffeisen Bank International in 2017.
Folksam is one of the largest insurance companies in Sweden. The company headquarters are located in Stockholm. Folksam consists of the two mutual insurance companies Folksam sak and Folksam liv. Folksam is today a Swedish insurance company only, after the sale in 2001 of the English subsidiary Folksam International.
Coop Norge SA is a Norwegian cooperative. It is owned by 117 local cooperatives with more than 1.3 million members. The company has its headquarters in Oslo.
The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement began with the application of cooperative principles to business organization.
Unipol Gruppo S.p.A. is an Italian financial services holding company operating in the insurance and banking fields with headquarters in the Unipol Tower, Bologna. As of 2009 it was ranked as the country's fourth-largest insurer.
The South Korean National Agricultural Cooperative Federation was established in 1961 to enhance the social and economic status of its membership and to promote a balanced development of the national economy. Its role is divided into three areas: marketing and supply, banking and insurance, and extension services.
Allianz is a German multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management.
The Ukrainian Cooperative Movement was a movement that addressed the economic plight of the Ukrainian people through the creation of financial, agricultural and trade cooperatives that enabled Ukrainians to pool their resources, to obtain less expensive loans and insurance, and to pay less for products such as farm equipment. The cooperatives played a major role in the social and economic mobilization of the Ukrainian people, most of whom were peasants. First begun in 1883, by 1939 cooperatives had 700,000 members in western Ukraine, employing 15,000 Ukrainians. The cooperatives were shut down by the Soviet authorities when western Ukraine was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939. However, they continue to exist and flourish among Ukrainian emigrants and their descendants in North and South America, Europe and Australia—in Ukrainian diaspora.
CIC Insurance Group Limited, commonly referred to as CIC Group, is an insurance and investment group that operates mainly in Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Malawi. CIC Group has a network of branches and operational subsidiaries spread across the 4 countries.
Arbejdernes Landsbank is a Danish bank founded in 1919 with approximately 250,000 customers and 1,075 employees. It is the 7th largest bank in Denmark. As of 2014 the bank has 70 branches in Denmark.
