Unconsolidated Subsidiary

  

Categories: Accounting

See: Subsidiary. See: Consolidated Income Statement. See: Consolidated Balance Sheet.

MegaGlop Corp has 12 divisions. They report the financial results of each subsidiary separately. Like...the windshield wiper division last quarter had $378 million in revenues and $28 in earnings. They reported the other 11 divisions separately. The results came to investors a la carte, separately, unconsolidated or mashed together.

Why does this matter? Well, when a company has a dozen divisions and all they report is a consolidated earnings number, that number doesn't really mean a whole lot. Which division is growing fast? Which is dying? Which is flat? Just a single number doesn't convey anything about the elements of the soup, so investors feel lost when looking at that number. And "lost" usually means "low multiple," as investors hate ambiguity. (See: Conglomerate Discount.)

Conglomerates with a dozen divisions that don't report separately get punished by the Street with a low price-to-earnings multiple. Ouch.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is a subsidiary?1 Views

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and finance Allah shmoop What is a subsidiary All right

00:07

people What is a subsidiary Is there like a Domus

00:10

City Eri Just like a 50 shades thing Maybe not

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Well they're both complicated and have to do with control

00:17

But no put those fuzzy handcuffs away A subsidiary is

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a company that has a parent company which means it's

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owned and controlled by another company Pet TV Corporation comprises

00:19

18 different divisions each of whom operate one form or

00:31

another of TV For pets There's Kat TV which runs

00:35

channels from the Tim Miao channel to the more 50

00:39

shades flavored Scratching Hiss There's also dog TV with books

00:43

and squirrel channels and bunny TV with Meadow and will

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of course Fox Channels Yes it's the other Fox channel

00:50

with no actual foxes Well each of these divisions has

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operated separately a subsidiary companies for accounting and operating efficiency

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reasons At the end of the reporting period all of

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the results are rolled up into one Final number is

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reported by the parent company Pet TV Well the 18

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subsidiaries all comprised value inside of the parent They'll get

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kind of rolled up to give investors one number parent

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and child Cos Air all around you even if you

01:14

didn't know it In real life big names like Alphabet

01:17

a Google and Amazon are actually parent companies of a

01:22

whole bunch of subsidiaries Amazon owns audible all the way

01:25

down through Zappos alphabet which used to be Google Is

01:28

the parent company with yes 26 different subsidiaries Very clever

01:33

Good luck with your taxes there this year Alphabet They've

01:35

got Calico an RD company fighting the Grim Reaper and

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aging You've got capital G a venture capital for start

01:42

ups You know who have their craft together Google of

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course That search engine thing with all the ads that

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you use on the rag there in some And then

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there's loon bringing the Internet to the boonies Yeah well

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why Air subsidiaries Even thing Well it always comes down

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to money doesn't it Subsidiaries can be smarter for for

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some accounting reasons but the main benefit is this separate

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assets so that each subsidiary company has its own managed

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branch of risk That way if Calico the anti ageing

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research and development subsidiary of Alphabet gotten trouble down the

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road for having some cryogenically frozen head wake up early

02:17

and sue them Then Calico would be sued and take

02:20

on the liability alphabets Other subsidiaries like Google Capital G

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and Loon would continue to function as if everything else

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was fine Just fine probably And lawyers would of course

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who all of alphabet but subsidiary Usually there's a legal

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protection built in there So sure if that disembodied heads

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suit alphabet parent company well that would put all the

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subsidiaries in potential jeopardy which is a risk in itself

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Still it's easier to have all the finances separate so

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the parent company can see and choose what assets are

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paying for what liabilities right Well subsidiaries also make more

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sense for some industries like in real estate it can

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be easier to create a new subsidiary for a new

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batch of properties than incorporating all of them into one

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existing company like think of the funnest real estate company

03:01

on the planet Disneyland Writer At least Disney Disney Cos

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you have Disneyland That's one piece realistic then Disney World

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Then he have like Disney China which is a joint

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venture and Disney Europe which is a different joint venture

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there all subsidiaries of the Disney Corporation So keeping those

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liabilities separate in case while that new batch properties is

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actually sitting on some slippery limestone which would cause some

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well pisa situations you know if you know we mean

03:25

so that would be bad and you keep in separate

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Teo keep liability separate and keep track of things separately

03:30

And if well the manager of Disney World's doing a

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much better job than the manager of Disney Land while

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they should be compensated for it or least taking care

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of better right So while taxes and accounting can't be

03:39

more complicated with subsidiaries there's benefits to like offsetting the

03:42

losses of one subsidiary with the profits of another one

03:45

Just a hedge out Taxes III So you don't owe

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any and just you know parent companies or sometimes called

03:50

holding companies and subsidiaries or sometimes called divisions or branches

03:55

Yeah and some people call 50 shades of grey Good 00:03:57.618 --> [endTime] book Some people just saying Oh yeah

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