Abstract
United Kingdom and USA have a system where private shareholders have ownership of their companies. Lots of companies in these countries are quoted in stock market. The way they can finance their companies is by opening their capital to private investors. As USA has a great influence in the world, this pattern tends to be applied in lots of countries even at a lower level. We can see that European companies (except UK and Holland) have bigger investors and try to keep a close relationship with them with also the presence of controller shareholder which often comes from the family. They have a power at the board. American companies are composed with lot of individual investors and also big funding. The companies in Europe also have independent directors but the difference is that in the US, they have more stock options. It means that they are more interested in the value of the share than the European directors.
