Deregulation: Private Firms

The Deregulation rules of John Company: forming and investing in private firms, firm treasuries, the Firms phase, secret firm strategies and initiative, firm trade, expenses, dividends, special retirements, Debtor's Prison and firm scoring.

When it applies

Deregulation is in play from the start of the 1813 scenario, and in 1758 or Long 1710 once Parliament passes the Vote to Deregulate. It adds the Firms phase between Family and Hiring.

Firms

A firm is a private trading house run by one player, its manager: it trades in India without the Company and pays its own shareholders. Your family board flips to its firm charter side.

Each firm has two treasuries:

• London treasury — investment money; pays expenses and fits ships.
• India treasury — trade income; pays expenses and dividends, then the rest moves to London.

You can never move money between your family treasury and a firm’s.

Special retirement

In each London Season, a player owning at least one firm share may make one extra retirement with a piece from their supply instead of a pensioner. It can cost at most the highest total dividend recorded by a firm they hold shares in (spouse discounts still apply). A firm whose dividend cube isn’t placed yet, or sits on zero, allows none.

Firms in Final Scoring

At the start of Final Scoring, each firm share scores the firm’s value (from the Value track); each piece in Debtor’s Prison costs 1 point. Round the total down. Then every shareholder may make one special retirement — whether or not the Company survived.

The Firms phase

Firm investments

No fixed order: anyone may act until nobody wants to. The firm’s manager settles timing within a firm; the Prime Minister between firms.

Company shares used for firms have two limits: none while the Standing or Debt marker is on a lined space (weak shares), and none created this turn (immature shares — flip them as a reminder).

• Form a firm. If you don’t manage one: return one of your Company shares to your supply, or flip one of your workshops to its invested side. Flip your family board, put a family member in the Shares box as the first share, a firm cube on the first space of the Value track, and £5 from the bank in the London treasury.
• Invest. With the manager’s consent, do the same with a Company share or workshop: the firm gains £5 and you place a firm share. Firm shares can be traded. An invested workshop pays no bonus and doesn’t score if the Company fails. A firm holds at most 10 shares; more investment adds money but no share.
• Fit ships. The manager pays £3 from London to fit a ship from a shipyard onto the charter — only with the shipyard owner’s consent. A player ship serving the Company can be bought back with its owner’s consent: £3 (£2 if fatigued), paid to the Manager of Shipping’s treasury. Firms never use Company or extra ships.
• Hostile takeover. If you don’t manage a firm and players holding a majority of its shares agree, flip your board, copy its cube positions and move its ships, money and shares to you.
• Merger. Managers may merge firms if every shareholder of every firm agrees. The highest-value firm survives and takes all treasuries, ships and shareholders (shares over 10 go home with their owners’ consent). A merger is one binding deal.

Firm strategy

Then every manager secretly picks a strategy card — West, South or East Indian Ocean (the sea zone and its home port), or Hobnob — and hides the money they’ll spend on the trade attempt from the London treasury. A sea zone needs at least one ship, even if its home port is closed. Reveal the money; keep the card face down. Each firm trades once per turn.

Hobnob means no trade, no money, no dividends — but the firm keeps its last dividend mark for special retirements, and its ships are safe from storms.

Firm trade

At the start of a Presidency’s operations, firms whose strategy points there reveal it and roll one die per £ spent (the money goes to the bank). At least one 1 or 2 means the firm may trade, with an initiative of its ships minus its successful dice (it can be negative).

The President’s own Trade roll gives the Company an initiative the same way (ships in the sea zone minus successes). Orders are filled once the President has succeeded, lowest initiative first; ties go to the President’s choice. If the President is vacant or doesn’t trade, the firms fill their orders after the Commander and Governors, with ties settled by the Chairman.

• A firm fills up to ships + 1 orders, starting from the home port on its card and always connected to orders it has filled.
• Each order once per firm. Mark a firm’s first fill with a filled-order token; the order’s small value goes into the India treasury.
• An order already filled this turn by another firm or the Company gives half its value, rounded down. The Company may fill orders firms filled, at half value too.
• Advance the firm’s Value marker one space per £6 added to its India treasury this turn.

During storms, firm ships count as in their strategy’s sea zone.

Firm expenses and dividends

At the start of the Revenue phase, before the Company, firms pay in initiative order (then the rest, ties by the manager’s windows, then clockwise from the Prime Minister).

1. Expenses — £1 per ship, plus £1 per share or £ equal to the firm’s value, whichever is higher. From either treasury.
2. Dividends — optional, from the India treasury only. Each dividend pays £1 per share to its owner and £1 to the manager. Shareholders may waive payment on some shares with the manager’s consent, to spread the money exactly.
3. Record the total paid by putting the firm’s dividend cube on that number of the Company Balance track (a Hobnob firm leaves it where it was).
4. Move what’s left in India to London.

Emergencies

A firm that can’t pay its expenses may take emergency investments from anyone (like a normal investment; leftover money is lost; the value drops one space per investment), or merge with one other firm that first pays its own expenses and the shortfall.

Debtor’s prison

A firm that still can’t pay is dissolved: every share goes to the Debtor’s Prison box on the Deregulation card (each costs its owner 1 point at the end), its ships go back to their shipyards, and the manager’s board flips back to the family side. Workshops invested in it stay invested for the rest of the game.

A firm may also be dissolved this way whenever all its shareholders agree.