I am in the process of founding a company with someone with whom I collaborated in the past few years. I am a canadian citizen, living in Canada, and the partner is French. We'd like to launch a product together, but we need to establish some sort of legal basis for that. We also need to have a bank account for the payments.

The company will pay its taxes in the country where we will register it, but I don't know if a foreigner can possess a share of a company established here in Canada for example. If so, I don't know if it's still possible if the partner in question cannot be physically present in the country to sing whatever papers are needed.

I also don't want to invest too much in legal fees, as we don't know yet if the project will be profitable, and to what extent. Still, I prefer things to be clear, so any advice from people who have experience is welcome!

Does anybody have experience with such ventures?