As of the end of April, Nightnurse Images is registered with a new legal structure. Founded as a “GmbH” in 2010 (in most cases translated as LLC), the company is now registered as “AG” (Ltd.).
Why did we transform our GmbH into an AG?
As shareholders of Nightnurse Images, we (Christoph, Christopher, and Lutz) have been thinking about this move for quite some time now and felt the year of Nightnurse Images’ ten-year anniversary would be a good moment.
What are the benefits we are expecting from this upgrade?
- It will become easier to include others in the ownership of the corporation. The question has come up repeatedly and more frequently over the recent year, whether partners of the organization can also become shareholders. We, as founders, welcome the idea and want to make it possible. We won’t do this directly with the AG transformation, but it lays the foundation. Our goal for the future is to allow co-ownership of the company to long term employees.
- In much the same way it will become easier to raise capital from external investors if ever we would want to in the future.
- Probably not the most rational reason, but an AG sounds more “professional”, and since the transformation is not that expensive, it’s worth it for us.
- On a more rational side, some clients have higher trust in AG companies, because of the higher capitalization, so there is potentially a real benefit from it.
- Currently, our GmbH only has a capitalization (“Eigenkapital”) of 21’000 Francs, which is not even close to the amount of money it needs just to run operations. Most of the capital currently comes from loans – mainly by the shareholders in the shape of withheld dividends and withheld salaries.
- An AG has a capitalization of at least 100’000 Francs which improves that state, and it makes it more reliable for external partners. As a result, a part of the loans will be transformed into shares.
- Talking about capitalization, we’re capitalizing the first letters of our company name as well. “nightnurse images” was great all along – we’re amused to realize how “2010s” it looks now. So, hi, we’re Nightnurse Images, and we’re really glad you’ve read this far!
For you, dear reader, customer, friend the takeaway from this is: as you were, nothing changes on our front end.
That’s one (very) small step for mankind, one giant leap for us.
Neil Armstrong never said this
But for us, it feels significant. Weirdly so, actually. Are we growing up now? Hard to imagine. But let’s talk again in a year or two… Do ask us anything in the meantime, if you are interested. We’re very happy to share our thoughts and observations about this upgrade in the legal structure.
If you want to know more about the differences between an AG and a GmbH click here!
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