preemptive right

American  

noun

1. a privilege given to an existing shareholder to buy a portion of a new stock issue at the offering price on a pro-rata per-share basis.

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Etymology

Origin of preemptive right

First recorded in 1850–55

Example Sentences

The preemptive right to their reservations was sold by the Holland Land Company, to Colonel Aaron Ogden and others, who were known as the Ogden Company.

From An Account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha, or Red Jacket, and His People, 1750-1830 by Hubbard, John Niles

Every such settler also acquired a preemptive right to purchase a thousand acres adjoining, at the regulation State price, which was forty pounds, paper money, or forty dollars in specie, for every hundred acres.

From The Winning of the West, Volume 2 From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 by Roosevelt, Theodore