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Companies: Shares, Guarantee, and Limited Liability.

There are five types of UK company:

public limited company ("PLC")
private company limited by shares ("CLS")
private company limited by guarantee ("CLG")
private unlimited company ("Unltd")
private company limited by guarantee with a share capital ("hybrid")

Let's leave aside the PLC: it is a simply the equivalent of the CLS when the shares may be publicly traded. The rest of this articles is just about what the UK calls private companies. Note also that it has not been permitted to incorporate a new hybrid company in the UK since about 1980, but that such creatures probably still exist, and they certainly occupy place in the typology.

One might be tempted to organise the four types of private company into a neat 2x2 matrix, according to whether each is limited by shares (CLS), or guarantee (CLG), or neither (Unltd) or both (hybrid). But this is slightly wrong, the private unlimited company might or might not possess a share capital, but the liability of the members it not *limited* to the share capital, if any. If it lacks a share capital, then an unlimited company is not limited by guarantee, because it is not limited by definition. This is more than just a point about how the descriptions are phrased: guarantees and share capital do not operate in the same way, as a guarantee is only relevant at the point the company is wound up due to insolvency, whereas the share capital is relevant during the company's life as it determines what dividends are paid.

So really, the unlimited company is of two types: unlimited with a share capital, and unlimited without a share capital.