difference between affiliate and subsidiary
Difference Between an Affiliate & Subsidiary. To qualify as a subsidiary or an affiliate, a company must be publicly traded. When companies own a percentage of other companies' stock, these other companies are considered either affiliates or subsidiaries. According to Business Dictionary.com and The Free Dictionary.com, the main difference between an affiliate and a subsidiary is the percentage of the business's stock another company owns. A parent company is a company that owns enough of another companyâs stocks to enable it to control the other company.
Difference Between Division and Subsidiary. A division is a part of a business entity. This means that a division, although it operates in a different name, is still a piece of the entity itself. On the other hand, a subsidiary is an entirely different company, a separate one, which is owned by another usually bigger entity.
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.