Personal share ownership is not a general L-1A employee requirement. The qualifying company relationship, employment and actual managerial or executive duties must still be established.
Explain authority through the actual position
A salaried employee may hold substantial delegated authority, while an owner may personally perform operational work. Assess the actual duties rather than using ownership as a substitute for the role analysis. Hypothetical example: a mineral exploration company's country manager holds no shares but sets the annual program budget, approves which properties are dropped, and directs three project geologists who each supervise crews.
The absence of a shareholding is simply not part of that analysis. Build the record from what the position does: reporting lines above and below, the authority actually delegated, the decisions taken without reference upward, and the personnel or functions managed. Where the applicant manages a function rather than staff, say which function and who executes it.
The qualifying foreign year rests on the same kind of evidence for the period abroad, so gather the foreign organizational chart and the foreign duty description for that year as well, not only the U.S. proposal. Ownership becomes relevant only where it bears on control of the entities, and that is the corporate-relationship question rather than the role question.
Where the role changed during the qualifying year, record the dates of each version instead of describing the current one as though it had always applied.