Those decimal points are confusing as all get out. Let’s discuss forms of ownership first.
A company can be a single proprietorship, a partnership, a corporation, or any of several other less common modes of ownership, such as a cooperative, a joint venture, LLC, etc.
Joe Smith makes duck decoys – good duck decoys, ones people want to buy. He goes into business for himself as Marshside Duck Decoys, filing a D/B/A certificate with the county, publishing a legal ad in the local paper, or whatever the state requirements for going into business under a given name happen to be in his jurisdiction. Joe owns Marshside Duck Decoys free and clear; it’s him doing business, and legally there is no distinction between Joe Smith and Marshside Duck Decoys except for tax purposes (he has to distinguish between business and personal expenditures there).
Joe does well at his business and in fact confers with Harry Brown, another duck decoy maker who lives a few miles away, and with Pete Lopez, yet another DDM. In fact Joe and Harry are doing so well that they decide to open a decoy store and workshop, and hire Pete full time. They form a partnership, a business venture jointly owned by the two of them. Ownership of the partnership, its assets, proceeds, debts, profits, etc., are the joint property of the two of them, and to be split between them in accord with the partnership agreement, or in accordance with state law if they have neglected to specify.
The duck decoy business is burgeoning, and Joe and Harry decide to incorporate. This forms a legal fictitious person, which is owned originally by Joe and Harry. They can sell shares of stock in it, to get more capital. Let’s say they issue 1000 shares, each retaining 251, so that they hold a majority interest between them, and sell the remaining 498. They now have the face value of the 498 shares as additional capital to expand their store and factory. Ownership is divided between Joe (25%+), Harry (25%+), and the people who bought shares in the new corporation. Joe and Harry between them have control of the corporation. But if they disagree, either of them can get the support of shareholders who together own at least 250 shares to give a majority interest to that group. Often this is done by obtaining proxies, a document that says, in essence, “I, Jack Shareholder, trust Joe Smith to run the company in which I hold 50 shares properly, and I therefore award to him revocable voting rights to the 50 shares I hold.”
With a million shares of stock out in a corporation, a person would need to own 500,001 shares to say they “owned the company” – which would mean they had effective control of it. More practically, though, it’s probable that they own 100,000 shares outright and have proxies from other shareholders to give them majority control of the company.
A cooperative is owned jointly by the producers or consumers who make use of it. For example, ten watermelon growers might band together for greater influence on the watermelon produce market, and constitute themselves the United Watermelon Growers Cooperative. Or a group of contractors might band together to get greater influence over the construction materials market, as a purchasers cooperative.
A limited liability company is a rather unique operation created by some states and recognized through all of them in which a given person or group of persons puts specific assets into that company and through proper use of the state law creates a corporation-like distinct legal entity for the purpose of doing business with those specific assets. In other words, a millionaire desiring to develop a beautiful clifftop site with a high-end condominium complex may create an LLC, put a chunk of his money into it, and buy the land and build the condos there, financing it himself, but protecting himself from the liability of someone falling over the cliff, construction accidents, and the like through the LLC. A group of doctors may incorporate their practice as a PLLC (professional limited liability company), restricting their liability for malpractice and the like to what they invest in the PLLC, and hence not risking their own homes to a malpractice suit against another PLLC member (as would be the danger if it were a partnership).