Money invested in a firm. The New York Times Financial Glossary
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capital cap‧i‧tal [ˈkæptl] noun [uncountable]
1. ECONOMICS money or property used to produce wealth:
• Countries around the world are hungry for capital and economic development.
— see also return on capitalˌcustomer ˈcapital
COMMERCE the value of a company's relationship with the people and other companies that it does business with:
• Companies have begun to take their customer capital seriously, and manage it as the asset it is.
people and their skills considered as a
factor of production (= one of the things an economy or organization must have to create wealth):
• Governments must invest in health and education to develop human capital.
the knowledge of the people working for a company, which can produce wealth:
• a service-oriented, information economy in which intellectual capital is the critical resource
the people working for a company, and their combined skills, knowledge etc, or the skills etc of people in a country as a whole:
• The Japanese are good at managing the social capital of large organisations.
2. FINANCE money from shareholders and lenders that can be invested by a business in assets in order to produce profits:
• There is a shortage of capital for the purchase of new aircraft.
• Since the stockmarket fall, companies have been prevented from raising capital by selling new stock.
• The company desperately needs a fresh injection of capital.
• The company has bought lots of land over the last few years, which ties up capital (= makes it unavailable for use ) as it waits to develop it.
• To finance the expansion programme, the company doubled its authorised capital from 5 billion to 10 billion pesos.
another name for
share capital when talking about the capital of financial institutions:
• the proportion of the bank's total assets held as core capital
ˈdebt ˌcapital
FINANCE capital raised by
Issuing bonds
(= making them available for people to buy ) :
• If a firm raises debt capital by selling bonds publicly, then some sales costs will be incurred.
capital in the form of shares, not debt:
• The company will issue 30 million new shares and raise its equity capital by £56 million.
capital invested in assets that produce goods or services, or the assets themselves;
= FIXED ASSET:
• The replacement of fixed capital is usually accompanied by an increased production capacity because of advances in technology.
capital sent abroad because of economic or political uncertainty:
• When Africa's flight capital comes home we will know that real recovery is in progress.
capital in the form of shares already offered to and held by shareholders
capital in the form of money lent to a company as loans,
bond S, or
debenture S, not shares;
= DEBT:
• The Welsh Development Agency provides loan capital for industrial projects.
the total value of all the shares issued by a company, at the time when they were issued:
• Shares in 29 companies with a total nominal capital of US$1,600 million were to be traded on the exchange.
a company's main class of ordinary shares on which
dividend S are paid only after those on more important classes of shares:
• AT&T holds 91 million ordinary shares in the company, representing 18.6% of its ordinary capital.
share capital for which money has actually been received from shareholders, rather than for shares not yet paid for or not yet
Issued (= made available):
• The issue of new shares raises its paid-up capital to $620 million.
ˈpreference ˌcapital , preˈferred ˌcapital FINANCE
a special class of a company's shares, on which
dividend S are paid before the dividends on ordinary shares, and whose holders are repaid before others if the company goes bankrupt
capital invested in a business activity that involves a lot of risk, but which may be very profitable;
= VENTURE CAPITAL capital that a company has from investors who have bought shares:
• San Paolo said it plans to sell the shares, which represent 20% of the bank's share capital.
one of the two categories into which a bank's capital is divided, consisting of the most central and important types of capital. According to banking rules, banks must keep a certain amount of Tier 1 capital to protect them against failing:
• Tier 1 or `core' capital consists of common stock, retained earnings, and preferred stock.
• The agreement called for the bank to maintain Tier 1 capital of at least 6% of its assets.
one of the two categories into which a bank's capital is divided, consisting of the less important and central types of capital:
• Tier 2 capital includes securities and subordinated loans.
capital in the form of shares that have been Issued (= made available to investors) but not yet paid for:
• the Company's property or assets, including its uncalled capital
shares that a company is allowed to issue but has not issued yet:
• options on the unissued share capital
money lent to someone so that they can start a new business;
= RISK CAPITAL:
• The fund provides venture capital and loans for US business projects.
• Pullman has borrowed heavily from banks and venture capital companies.
money used by a business to carry on production and keep trading, for example to pay employees and suppliers before money is received for goods sold:
• We will have to make our entire technical staff redundant because we have run out of operating capital.
• the need for working capital to expand operations
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Economists define capital as assets, other than labour and land, that are required for production. In financial markets capital refers to the financing instruments used principally to acquire capital goods -in particular it refers to debt instruments and equity.
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capital UK US /ˈkæpɪtəl/ noun
► [
U]
FINANCE,
ECONOMICS attract/borrow/raise capital »
Low-tax policies are used by some countries to attract capital.
invest/inject capital »
The UK parent company decided not to inject further capital into the failing business.
»
foreign/private capital
»
Investors are finding that there has been a satisfactory return on capital.
► [
U]
ACCOUNTING,
FINANCE tie up/release capital »
Most of our capital is tied up in property.
► [
U]
FINANCE,
ECONOMICS »
Our mortgage is interest-only, so we're not paying off any of the capital.
► [
U]
ECONOMICS,
POLITICS »
There's a real conflict arising between the demands of capital and labour.
► [
C] (
also capital city) »
What's the capital of China?
→
See also AUTHORIZED SHARE CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
authorized share capital),
CALLED-UP SHARE CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
called-up share capital),
CIRCULATING CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
circulating capital),
CORE CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
core capital),
COST OF CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
cost of capital),
CUSTOMER CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
customer capital),
DEBT CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
debt capital),
EQUITY CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
equity capital),
FIXED CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
fixed capital),
FLIGHT CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
flight capital),
HUMAN CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
human capital),
INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
intellectual capital),
KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
knowledge capital),
LOAN CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
loan capital),
NOMINAL CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
nominal capital),
OPERATING CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
operating capital),
ORDINARY CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
ordinary capital),
PAID-IN CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
paid-in capital),
PREFERENCE CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
preference capital),
PREFERRED CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
preferred capital),
RETURN ON CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
return on capital),
RISK CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
risk capital),
SHARE CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
share capital),
SOCIAL CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
social capital),
TIER 2 CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
Tier 2 capital),
UNCALLED CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
uncalled capital),
VENTURE CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
venture capital),
WORKING CAPITAL(
Cf. ↑
working capital)