Is "Parent Company" a Misnomer?

[NW Mailing List]

Corporate parenting can be an obscure, inexact  relationship. Percent of 
stock ownership and an artsy schematic defining  who-controls-what likely defines 
most such parental business connections.  At the same time, there are other 
factors such as a board member's individual  personal power, a leasehold 
position between the entities,  off-the-books IOUs, political connections, and actual 
home grown family  interrelationships that could create a parental business 
situation. The stock  ownership choice likely is Webster's correct answer, but 
those other factors can  make a difference. 
 
Regarding the parenting powers Pennsy may or may not have  held over the N&W, 
Jimmy Lisle asked, " If this parenting stuff had  actually been true, then 
why is it also mentioned that the PRR kept their hands  off what the N&W was 
doing?"
 
To me, the crux of the matter is in his question: "... kept  their hands off 
..."
 
The implied meaning of that line is that Pennsy choose to keep  its hands off 
N&W matters. If, in fact, Pennsy actually had the power to  make that choice 
on its own, then at the same time, Pennsy had the power to do  the opposite: 
to put its Godly hands all over N&W's operation.
 
Clearly, I don't know the answer because I don't know if the  choice was 
Pennsy's. However, my sense of Pennsy history is that there were  times that it 
was so big and powerful that it literally could exert a semblance  of "parental 
powers" over most of the hundreds of other railroads without owning  a single 
share of that other railroad's stock. 
 
My guess is that in today's world, each of the half dozen or  so major U.S. 
railroads maintains a modicum of control over the short lines that  lease 
tracks belonging to the majors, all without the majors owning any stock in  the 
short line. Is that parenting? If you base parenting on stock ownership, how  
much stock of a short line would a major have to own to be a parent?
 
Good question, Jimmy ... I wonder if we'll ever find an answer?
 
I vote for steam renewed ... Bob Loehne ... Thomasville, GA
 




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