Question about owning multiple companies...

[Dr. Domaining]

I am just curious as to what the law is regarding someone who owns multiple companies but wants them to be owned by a parent company. For instance you have one large company that owns the smaller companies. This company would be a company of the company and would be stated so. So all customers would know it's a division of the larger company. Mind you all payments would be made to the parent company.

My question is would you need to register each company individually or would it be okay to just register the parent company?

All feedback on this topic is appreciated.

Thank you!

[GeorgeK]

Corporations must be incorporated separately. They are legal entities, that can own other companies, as you were thinking.

What you might be thinking of, though, is having a corporation with multiple "Doing Business As" or "Trade Names". E.g. you can have 001115561 Ontario Inc. (a holding company), doing business as "Pizza Pizza" and/or "Speedy Cleaners" (notice no "Inc." after these trade names -- you must be incorporated separately to use Inc. or Limited or other corporate identifiers). Those trading names typically need to be registered, but at low cost compared to corporation names (and without the extra ongoing legal and accounting fees of a separate corporation).

[Dr. Domaining]

OK, that's exactly what I thought I just wanted to double check. Thank you for the response.

Thanks again!

Corporations must be incorporated separately. They are legal entities, that can own other companies, as you were thinking.

What you might be thinking of, though, is having a corporation with multiple "Doing Business As" or "Trade Names". E.g. you can have 001115561 Ontario Inc. (a holding company), doing business as "Pizza Pizza" and/or "Speedy Cleaners" (notice no "Inc." after these trade names -- you must be incorporated separately to use Inc. or Limited or other corporate identifiers). Those trading names typically need to be registered, but at low cost compared to corporation names (and without the extra ongoing legal and accounting fees of a separate corporation).