Note 290 — Chapter XV · PERSONS.

The relation between a corporation and its beneficiaries may or may not amount to a trust in the proper sense of the term. A share in a company is not the beneficial ownership of a certain proportion of the company’s property, but the benefit of a contract made by the shareholder with the company, under which he is entitled to be paid a share of the profits made by the company, and of the surplus assets on its dissolution. A share is a chose in action—an obligation between the company and the shareholder. Colonial Bank v. Whinney, 11 A. C. 426.