[johneth]

I find it strange that details of the owners of a private company isn't publicly available information in the first place (speaking as someone from a country – the UK – where this is publicly available information).

In the UK (and I'd assume many other countries), you can see the owners of private companies on the Companies House website[0], along with those with 'significant control' and financial statements. It's pretty interesting and useful to look at sometimes.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-a-company

[HL33tibCe7]

Companies House is the exception rather than the rule. The UK is actually very good at this.

[bdjsiqoocwk]

Without taking from your point, I believe you can have a UK limited company owned by an entity in a different jurisdiction that's less good than the UK.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

It’s very state dependent in the USA. Some states, like Texas, require the owner be public and the actual owner of the LLC.

[smsm42]

Why is it strange? I do not see why there would be an expectation that details of company's investor relationships would be known to people that have nothing to do with company's business. "Pretty interesting" doesn't sound like a good justification.

[jononor]

Companies run the world. Many are as large as entire countries, and have huge influence over large aspects of peoples lives - from media, to food, to medicine, etc. That makes it in the publics interest to have insights into how they are controlled. Follow the money.

[smsm42]

Controlling and investing are completely different things. Control is exercised by the board and the management, and these are pretty much universally public for a large company. However, investment does not have to come with a seat on the board - a large one can, and then, again, it would be public, but it doesn't have to. You seem to confuse entirely different things.

[johneth]

It's useful to know who owns a company or know a company's financial state for anyone who wants to do business with that company.

It adds a level of transparency that makes it easier if you're at the beginning of a relationship with a company (i.e. there may not be a large amount of trust at the start of the relationship; knowing who owns a company and its financial state can be good signals).

[smsm42]

It may be "useful" for me to inspect your private bank accounts (maybe you are a good investor and I can learn something!) but it's no justification for me to violate your privacy. It may be very "useful" for me to know the business plans of my competitor, but gaining access to them is usually qualified as criminal. "Useful" is not something that authomatically gives access to private information just because somebody wants to.

> knowing who owns a company and its financial state can be good signals

That makes no sense. Public companies are owned by hundreds of individuals and entities, and the company has zero control over it, making any conclusions based on that is nonsense. Moreover, even private company can't really block an investor from selling their share to another investor, why would anyone take it as a "signal" to anything, except the signal that the buying investor considers it to be a good deal? This looks very much like an instance of motivated reasoning.

[johneth]

> It may be "useful" for me to inspect your private bank accounts (maybe you are a good investor and I can learn something!) but it's no justification for me to violate your privacy.

Right, that's why that's not a thing. We're talking about limited liability companies, not people. They're separate entities.

> It may be very "useful" for me to know the business plans of my competitor, but gaining access to them is usually qualified as criminal. "Useful" is not something that authomatically gives access to private information just because somebody wants to.

The information available is very basic stuff – the company's registered address, its officers, its shareholders and how much they own, insolvency information, and yearly accounts.

My point in it being 'useful' is that it's useful to know who you're going into business with; a cursory look at the company's very basic information can help in that, before, for example, you sign a contract with them.

> Public companies are owned by hundreds of individuals and entities, and the company has zero control over it, making any conclusions based on that is nonsense.

Sure, some companies are owned by hundreds of individuals and entities. A lot are owned by one or two or five people. Either way, it's useful to know who owns the company, and who owns more than others (i.e. controls more than others).

> Moreover, even private company can't really block an investor from selling their share to another investor, why would anyone take it as a "signal" to anything, except the signal that the buying investor considers it to be a good deal? This looks very much like an instance of motivated reasoning.

What are you talking about? I'm not talking about 'useful' to investors (which it definitely is). I'm talking about 'useful' to people doing business with that company. Knowing exactly who you're doing business with, and how financially secure the company is, is very useful. You don't want to go in to business with a company that's about to go under.

[smsm42]

> We're talking about limited liability companies, not people. They're separate entities.

I know, but this still doesn't validate the logic "I am curious about it therefore I must be given rights to access any information I want".

> I'm talking about 'useful' to people doing business with that company.

This makes even less sense. Nobody checks the list of shareholders of Walmart each time they go to buy milk. And you definitely are not "doing business with" the investors - you're at most are doing business with the management and the line workers. Surely, for mom-and-pop shops those are the same people, but for any company of decent size, and for pretty much any startup company out there, you never "doing business with" the investors - they at most advise the management, but they do not actually run things.

> You don't want to go in to business with a company that's about to go under.

That has nothing to do with the list of investors. The same investors could invest in a wildly successful and completely failing businesses, at the same time, and knowing the list of investors gives you zero information about whether or not the company is about to go under.

[askonomm]

Same in Estonia. You can see the owners / shareholders of every private company and also all the financial / tax information per financial quarter (and year).