Bourque Industries Inc (BORK)

[RockQQ]

All companies must have a statutory maximum number of shares authorized to be issued. This authorization is done simply by an act of their board of directors, and is required to be declared on/for state corporate filings such as the one posted by GotMilk.

It is quite a separate issue to say that, just because a company has increased the number of its 'authorized' shares, that all or even some of those shares have been 'issued'. Only 'issued' shares exist in the company's fully-diluted share count and count for the purposes of earnings per share measures, etc., not authorized shares.

Large companies like IBM, Apple, GE, etc. all have authorized share figures that far exceed the number of shares they have actually 'issued'. It gives their boards flexibility to do stock splits, to issue options and restricted stock awards, donate stock to charity, or whatever. But 'authorizing' additional new shares, as BORK seemingly has now done, does not mean that any of these shares necessarily have been issued.

So let's not panic about JB having 500 million new shares in his pocket or anything like that. If he receives shares as salary, they will be issued and accounted for in the quarterly filings once they begin again, and will likely be in moderate amounts.

Bottom line: Shares don't 'exist' at all, and there is no share dilution at all, until such shares are 'issued'. 'Authorizing' new shares means nothing, authorizing shares just gives boards of directors 'flexibility' for any future decisions or moves it might (or might not!) ever make.