The bank could, for example, provide expertise to the former Soviet republics on how to convert government industries into investor-owned companies.

The three investor-owned companies provide coverage for a total of nine million members in California, or about 4 in 10 residents in managed care.

Northland Utilities is an investor-owned company that, through two operating companies, provides electricity to customers in the Northwest Territories, Canada.

Their structure varies from a water district to a municipality to a private investor-owned company.

Of the 103 investor-owned companies studied, 32 had rates of return that exceeded 15 percent.

It is a government-sponsored but investor-owned company that insures mortgages against default, enabling them to be sold to investors as bonds called mortgage-backed securities.

Riding the wave of expanding insurance coverage, investor-owned companies added 17,000 beds in dozens of new hospitals in the 1980's.

The final stage in Nasdaq's transition into an investor-owned company could be an initial offering.

Government generally provides subsidies through investments and partnerships in the initial capital costs of research and manufacturing infrastructure that cannot be matched by investor-owned companies.

Total stands out in a country noted for cosseted state-owned industries that hemorrhage cash; large, well-run investor-owned companies like it are scarce.