A subsidiary, in business matters, is an entity that is controlled by a separate higher entity. The controlled entity is called a company, corporation, or limited liability company; and in some cases can be a government or state-owned enterprise, and the controlling entity is called its parent (or the parent company). The reason for this distinction is that a lone company cannot be a subsidiary of any organization; only an entity representing a legal fiction as a separate entity can be a subsidiary. Contrary to popular belief, a parent company does not have to be the larger or "more powerful" entity; it is possible for the parent company to be smaller than a subsidiary or the parent may be larger than some or all of its subsidiaries (if it has more than one) The parent and the subsidiary do not necessarily have to operate in the same locations, or operate the same businesses, but it is also possible that they could conceivably be competitors in the marketplace. (Hewlett Packard is the parent company of Compaq, but both compete against each other in the sale of desktop computers.) Also, because a parent company and a subsidiary are separate entities, it is entirely possible for one of them to be involved in legal proceedings, bankruptcy, tax delinquency, indictment and/or under investigation, while the other is not.
The most common way that control of a subsidiary, is achieved is through the ownership of shares in the subsidiary by the parent. These shares give the parent the necessary votes to determine the composition of the board of the subsidiary, and so exercise control. This gives rise to the common presumption that 50% plus one share is enough to create a subsidiary. There are, however, other ways that control can come about, and the exact rules both as to what control is needed, and how it is achieved, can be complex (see below). A subsidiary may itself have subsidiaries, and these, in turn, may have subsidiaries of their own. A parent and all its subsidiaries together are called a "group", although this term can also apply to cooperating companies and their subsidiaries with varying degrees of shared ownership.
Subsidiaries are separate, distinct legal entities for the purposes of taxation and regulation. For this reason, they differ from divisions, which are businesses fully integrated within the main company, and not legally or otherwise distinct from it.
Subsidiaries are a common feature of business life, and most if not all major businesses organize their operations in this way. Examples include holding companies such as Berkshire Hathaway as in this listing of its subsidiaries, Time Warner, or Citigroup; as well as more focused companies such as IBM, or Xerox Corporation. These, and others, organize their businesses into national or functional subsidiaries, sometimes with multiple levels of subsidiaries.
An operating subsidiary is a business term frequently used within the United States railroad industry. In the case of a railroad, it refers to a company that is a subsidiary but operates with its own identity, locomotives and rolling stock.
In contrast, a non-operating subsidiary would exist on paper only (i.e. stocks, bonds, articles of incorporation) and would use the identity and rolling stock of the parent company.
A parent company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors; the second company being deemed as a subsidiary of the parent company. The definition of a parent company differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with the definition normally being defined by way of laws dealing with companies in that jurisdiction.
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