in business ownership and control are important it determines who benefits from a business and its activities in a publicly listed company the business is owned and controlled by investors the purpose of the company is to make a financial return for those investors but in this business model ownership and control can become concentrated in the hands of a few but there's a different way of doing business in a cooperative or mutual enterprise or CME ownership and control is shared equally amongst members a co-ops purpose is to provide benefits back to its members members of a co-op are drawn from the stakeholders of the business these can be customers or employees or people in the local community in a credit union or member owned bank the members are the customers in a producer co-op members of the farmers and in a worker co-op members are the employees co-ops also benefit the local economy returns from a co-op stay with members and are reinvested in the local community CME's have a long and proud history in Australia the first coops were friendly societies set up in the mid nineteenth century to care for sick people widows and children these were followed by retail coops dairy coops motoring organizations building societies and credit unions today more than 8 and 10 Australians are members of a semi and there are 1 billion co-op members globally some of the world's best known brands and organizations are member owned even famous football teams are owned as a cooperative wherever they are in the world cooperatives operate under the same international principles of cooperation these principles are based on democracy self-help economic participation and concern for the community to find out more about cooperatives in Australia please visit the Business Council of cooperatives and Mutual's website [Music]