Affiliate
An affiliate is a related company or person whose control, ownership, or influence matters for corporate finance, securities rules, and disclosure.
Corporate group-structure terms for affiliates, holding companies, subsidiaries, and variable-interest entities.
Affiliates, Holding Companies, and Subsidiaries explains business ownership forms, entity relationships, control rights, liability boundaries, partnership roles, and shared-venture structures used in corporate finance.
Use these pages when ownership form or group structure changes who controls assets, contributes capital, bears obligations, receives distributions, or approves transactions. It sits inside Control, Affiliates, Holding Companies, and Subsidiaries, so readers can move up when the broader company-finance context matters.
Use the table below to choose the narrower corporate-finance branch before applying a term to a model, board memo, financing analysis, transaction review, or risk assessment. Move into the term page when the evidence source, calculation, agreement, filing, account, or governance right matters.
| Area | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Affiliate | An affiliate is a related company or person whose control, ownership, or influence matters for corporate finance, securities rules, and disclosure. |
| Holding Company | A holding company owns shares or interests in other entities to control subsidiaries, organize assets, manage risk, or separate business lines. |
| Multinational Corporation | A multinational corporation operates across multiple countries through foreign subsidiaries, branches, production, sales, financing, or management structures. |
| Subsidiary | A subsidiary is an entity controlled by another company, usually through majority ownership, voting rights, or contractual control. |
| Variable Interest Entity | A variable interest entity is a legal entity consolidated based on economic control through variable interests rather than simple voting ownership. |
Ownership-structure content is educational and does not provide legal, tax, accounting, or entity-formation advice.
Choose a subsection first. Deeper term pages live inside each subsection, which keeps large topic hubs readable.
An affiliate is a related company or person whose control, ownership, or influence matters for corporate finance, securities rules, and disclosure.
A holding company owns shares or interests in other entities to control subsidiaries, organize assets, manage risk, or separate business lines.
A multinational corporation operates across multiple countries through foreign subsidiaries, branches, production, sales, financing, or management structures.
A subsidiary is an entity controlled by another company, usually through majority ownership, voting rights, or contractual control.
A variable interest entity is a legal entity consolidated based on economic control through variable interests rather than simple voting ownership.