Liquidmetal Technologies Inc (LQMT)

[CIMA7]

Please explain this to me then...

Authorized Shares

Authorized shares refer to the largest number of shares that a single corporation can issue. The number of authorized shares per company is assessed at the company's creation and can only be increased or decreased through shareholders' vote. If at the time of incorporation the documents state that 100 shares are authorized, then only 100 shares can be issued.

But just because a company can issue a certain number of shares doesn't mean it will issue all of them to the public. Typically companies will, for many reasons, keep a portion of the shares in their own treasury. For example, company XYZ may decide to maintain a controlling interest within the treasury just to ward off any hostile takeover bids. On the other hand, the company may have shares handy in case it wants to sell them for excess cash (rather than borrowing).