A chartered company is an association with investors or shareholders that is incorporated and granted rights by royal charter for the purpose of trade, exploration, or colonization, or a combination of these.
Share certificate of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated 16 June 1288
The British East India Company's headquarters in London
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta of 1215, but since the 14th century have only been used in place of private acts to grant a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organisations such as boroughs, universities and learned societies.
Charter granted by King George IV in 1827, establishing King's College, Toronto, now the University of Toronto
Coloured engraving by H. D. Smith, commemorating the grant of a charter in 1829 to King's College, London
The McGill University Arts Building in Montreal, Quebec
Stauffer Library at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario