Русско-англо-русский юридический словарь

A parent company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operation by doing and influencing or electing its board of directors; the second company being deemed as a subsidiary of the parent company. (Wikipedia)

What are the differences between affiliate, associate and subsidiary companies?

All three of these terms refer to the degree of ownership that a parent company holds in another company. In most cases, the terms affiliate and associate are used synonymously to describe a company whose parent only possesses a minority stake in the ownership of the company.

A subsidiary, on the other hand, is a company whose parent is a majority shareholder. (Investopedia)

In a spin-off, the parent company (ParentCo) distributes to its existing shareholders new shares in a subsidiary, thereby creating a separate legal entity with its own management team and board of directors. (macabacus.com)

Spin-offs occur when a parent corporation distributes all or most of its holdings of stock in a subsidiary to the parent's shareholders based on the proportion to their holdings in the parent company, i.e. on a pro rata basis. As a result, the subsidiary company is no longer owned or controlled by the parent company and there are two separate publicly traded companies. Prior to the spin-off, shareholders only own the parent company's stock, whereas after the spin-off they own shares in both the parent and the subsidiary. In these transactions, no funds change hands, and the assets of the subsidiary are not revalued. The transaction is considered to be a stock dividend and a tax-free exchange under Internal Revenue Code Section 355.

It is important to distinguish corporate spin-offs from three types of related transactions—equity carve-outs, split-offs, and split-ups. Under an equity carve-out, a portion of the subsidiary's shares are offered for sale to the general public. This has the effect of injecting cash into the parent firm without the loss of control. Under a split-off, shareholders exchange their parent stock for the shares of the subsidiary. These transactions provide the company an opportunity to dispose of a subsidiary in a tax-free manner, and even to relieve itself of an unwanted shareholder. A split-up occurs when the parent distributes shares in each of its subsidiaries, and the parent firm liquidates and ceases to exist. (referenceforbusiness.com)