Wholly Owned Subsidiary

See: Holding Company. See: Subsidiary.

Companies don't always own 100% of their subsidiaries, especially when it comes to manufacturing companies who want to distribute internationally. You can imagine what noise would come from hearing The People sing in France, should an American car company try to sell their cars in Paris without employing high-priced French union labor in their subsidiary. But other venues "are just fine" with wholly owned subs.

And often it makes sense to have 100% at almost any rational cost. Think: just about anything and everything down the Disney line of intellectual properties. How awful would it be for the top level corporate people at Disney to own only 70% of their next animated musical character, and then have to figure out transfer pricing for who gets what where as the character is monetized on cable, and on satellite, and as licenses to stuffed animals, and as an app on cell phones, in 127 countries around the world?

So yeah, that wholly owned thing is like whole milk. It's great if you can digest it.