What is an ultimate holding company?

An ultimate holding company has ultimate or overall control of the new company. In essence, one company controls another. An ultimate holding company can have any number of subsidiaries but cannot itself be a subsidiary.

An ultimate holding company is most likely to feature in the following scenarios:

“All shares in company X are held by company Y. Company Y’s shares are held by several individuals. Company Y may be the ultimate holding company”

N.B. It could be the ultimate holding company or simply the holding company

“All shares in company X are held by company Y. Company Y’s shares are in turn all held by Company Z whose share are held by individuals. In this case, Company Z is the ultimate holding company of company X”

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Updated — Jun 4, 2018