Joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to access a new market, particularly emerging market; to gain scale efficiencies by combining assets and operations; to share risk for major investments or projects; or to access skills and capabilities.[1]
For other uses, see Joint Venture (disambiguation).
According to Gerard Baynham of Water Street Partners, there has been much negative press about joint ventures, but objective data indicate that they may actually outperform wholly owned and controlled affiliates. He writes, "A different narrative emerged from our recent analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) data, collected from more than 20,000 entities. According to the DOC data, foreign joint ventures of U.S. companies realized a 5.5 percent average return on assets (ROA), while those companies' wholly owned and controlled affiliates (the vast majority of which are wholly owned) realized a slightly lower 5.2 percent ROA. The same story holds true for investments by foreign companies in the U.S., but the difference is more pronounced. U.S.-based joint ventures realized a 2.2 percent average ROA, while wholly owned and controlled affiliates in the U.S. only realized a 0.7 percent ROA."[2]
Most joint ventures are incorporated, although some, as in the oil and gas industry, are "unincorporated" joint ventures that mimic a corporate entity. With individuals, when two or more persons come together to form a temporary partnership for the purpose of carrying out a particular project, such partnership can also be called a joint venture where the parties are "co-venturers".
The venture can be a business JV (for example, Dow Corning), a project/asset JV intended to pursue one specific project only, or a JV aimed at defining standards or serving as an "industry utility" that provides a narrow set of services to industry participants.
Some major joint ventures include United Launch Alliance, Vevo, Hulu, Virgin Media O2, Penske Truck Leasing, and Owens-Corning.
Legal definition[edit]
In European law, the term "joint venture" is an exclusive legal concept, better defined under the rules of company law. In France, the term "joint venture" is variously translated as "association d'entreprises", "entreprise conjointe", "coentreprise" or "entreprise commune".[3]
A JV can be brought about in the following major ways:
In the UK, India, and in many common law countries, a joint-venture (or else a company formed by a group of individuals) must file its memorandum of association with the appropriate authority. This is a statutory document which informs the public of its existence. It may be viewed by the public at the office in which it is filed.[a] Together with the articles of association, it forms the "constitution" of a company in these countries.
The articles of association regulate the interaction between shareholders and the directors of a company and can be a lengthy document of up to 700,000+
pages. It deals with the powers relegated by the stockholders to the directors and those withheld by them, requiring the passing of ordinary resolutions, special resolutions and the holding of Extraordinary General Meetings to bring the directors' decision to bear.
A Certificate of Incorporation[5] or the Articles of Incorporation[6] is a document required to form a corporation in the U.S. (in actuality, the state where it is incorporated) and in countries following the practice. In the US, the "constitution" is a single document. The Articles of Incorporation is again a regulation of the directors by the stock-holders in a company.
By its formation, the JV becomes a new entity with the implications that:
On the receipt of the Certificate of Incorporation, a company can commence its business.
This is a legal area and is fraught with difficulty as the laws of countries differ, particularly on the enforceability of "heads of" or shareholder agreements. For some legal reasons, it may be called a Memorandum of Understanding. It is done in parallel with other activities in forming a JV. Though dealt with briefly for a shareholders' agreement,[7] some issues must be dealt with here as a preamble to the discussion that follows. There are also many issues which are not in the Articles when a company starts up or never ever present. Also, a JV may elect to stay as a JV alone in a "quasi partnership" to avoid any nonessential disclosure to the government or the public.
Some of the issues in a shareholders' agreement are:
There are many features which have to be incorporated into the shareholders' agreement which is quite private to the parties as they start off. Normally, it requires no submission to any authority.
The other basic document which must be articulated is the Articles, which is a published document and known to members. This repeats the shareholders agreement as to the number of directors each founder can appoint to the board of directors; whether the board controls or the founders; the taking of decisions by simple majority (50%+1) of those present or a 51% or 75% majority with all directors present (their alternates/proxy); the deployment of funds of the firm; extent of debt; the proportion of profit that can be declared as dividends; etc. Also significant is what will happen if the firm is dissolved, if one of the partners dies, or if the firm is sold.
Often, the most successful JVs are those with 50:50 partnership with each party having the same number of directors but rotating control over the firm, or rights to appoint the Chairperson and Vice-chair of the company. Sometimes a party may give a separate trusted person to vote in its place proxy vote of the Founder at board meetings.[8]
Recently, in a major case the Indian Supreme Court has held that Memorandums of Understanding (whose details are not in the articles of association) are "unconstitutional" giving more transparency to undertakings.
A JV is not a permanent structure. It can be dissolved when:
Risks[edit]
Joint ventures are risky forms of business partnerships. Literature in business and management has paid attention to different factors of conflict and opportunism in joint ventures, in particular the influence of parent control structure,[9] ownership change, and volatile environment.[10]
Joint ventures in different jurisdictions[edit]
China[edit]
According to a 2003 report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, China was the recipient of US$53.5 billion in direct foreign investment, making it the world's largest recipient of direct foreign investment for the first time, to exceed the US. Also, it approved the establishment of nearly 500,000 foreign-investment enterprises. The US had 45,000 projects (by 2004) with an in-place investment of over 48 billion.[13]
Until recently, no guidelines existed on how foreign investment was to be handled due to the restrictive nature of China toward foreign investors. Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, initiatives in foreign trade began to be applied, and law applicable to foreign direct investment was made clear in 1979, while the first Sino-foreign equity venture took place in 2001.[14] The corpus of the law has improved since then.
Companies with foreign partners can carry out manufacturing and sales operations in China and can sell through their own sales network. Foreign-Sino companies have export rights which are not available to wholly Chinese companies, as China desires to import foreign technology by encouraging JVs and the latest technologies.
Under Chinese law, foreign enterprises are divided into several basic categories. Of these, five will be described or mentioned here: three relate to industry and services and two as vehicles for foreign investment.
Those five categories of Chinese foreign enterprises are: the Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures (EJVs), Sino-Foreign Co-operative Joint Ventures (CJVs), Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises (WFOE), although they do not strictly belong to Joint Ventures, plus foreign investment companies limited by shares (FICLBS), and Investment Companies through Foreign Investors (ICFI). Each category is described below.