What is Issued Shares?
Issued shares are the total number of shares a company has issued from its authorized share capital to date, including shares held by external shareholders (outstanding shares) and shares the company has bought back and holds in treasury.
How It Works
- Authorized shares: maximum allowed by the articles of association.
- Issued shares: actually issued from the authorized pool.
- Outstanding shares: issued shares minus treasury shares (the count used for EPS).
- Treasury shares: issued shares repurchased by the company.
Saudi Context
Saudi joint-stock companies must disclose authorized, issued, and outstanding shares in the financial statement notes. Any increase in issued capital requires a CMA-approved prospectus for listed companies and an extraordinary general assembly resolution under the Saudi Companies Law. Treasury share holdings cannot exceed 10% of issued capital.
Example
A Saudi company has 100,000,000 authorized shares, has issued 80,000,000, and holds 5,000,000 in treasury. Outstanding shares = 80,000,000 – 5,000,000 = 75,000,000, used as the denominator for EPS calculations.