A holding company owns and holds the stock of subsidiary companies.  The holding company generally has no operations and no employees.  The subsidiary companies formed and owned by the holding company have separate boards of directors, management, employees and manufacturing and/or service operations.  The holding company has very little authority over subsidiary companies, once they are formed and are operational, except to vote on issues pertaining to stock ownership, such as, election of Board members, approval of outside independent auditors and approval of changes in the articles of incorporation.