I often see this string of letters beside German company names. What the heck does it mean?
Someone asked this here a while ago (last year?). It’s a German abbreviation which stands for “Gesellschaft mit beschraenkter Haftung”, and translates roughly to “corporation with limited liability”.
So almost an exact translation of the abbreviation “LLC” (Limited Liability Company) that you will sometimes see on American company names.
And similarly “AG” means “Allgemeines Gesellschaft” or “public corporation.”
It stands for Aktieng*esellschaft* - “stock corporation”.
I don’t know how exactly the differences translate to the american system, but:
[ul]
[li]a GmbH is easier to found[/li][li]the internal structure is more flexible[/li][li]the obligation to report results/news to the public is relaxed [/li][li]AGs can’t impose any obligations upon the shareholders[/li][li]GmbHs can’t be traded publicly at a stock exchange[/li][/ul]
Many of the differences exist to facilitate public trading of AG-stocks, so you can buy those without the need to read any fine print. As a rule of thumb smaller corporations are more likely to be GmbHs, but there is a big overlap. For example many joint-ventures are GmbHs if they is not intention to trade shares publicly.
In addition to that there are a few forms of corporation with full liability for one or more shareholders.