wholly owned

Meaning

1. 1adjectivenot comparablebusiness

   Belonging completely to one owner, with no part held by anyone else, usually said of a company controlled by another firm.

   Grammar: Often before a noun with a hyphen: a wholly-owned subsidiary; after a verb without it: the firm is wholly owned by its parent.

   Patterns

   • wholly owned by someone
   • a wholly owned subsidiary of something

   The airline is a wholly owned subsidiary of a larger travel group.

   The bakery remains wholly owned by the founding family.

   After the merger, the smaller studio became wholly owned by its rival.

Common combinations

wholly owned subsidiary

The brand is a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company.

wholly owned by

The railway is wholly owned by the state.

become wholly owned

The startup became wholly owned after the buyout.

wholly owned company

A wholly owned company reports its profits to its parent.

remain wholly owned

The vineyard will remain wholly owned by the family.

Synonyms and how they differ

fully owned

Fully owned is a looser everyday phrase, whereas wholly owned is the standard business term.

entirely owned

Entirely owned stresses that nobody else holds any share, but it is less common in formal documents.

100% owned

100% owned is shorter and common in spoken business talk, but sounds less formal than wholly owned.

privately held

Privately held describes a company not listed on a stock exchange, but its ownership may still be split.

Opposites

Word family

wholly adverb

completely

whole adjective

complete or entire

own verb

to have something as your property

owner noun

a person or organization that owns something

ownership noun

the state of owning something

Commonly confused: wholly owned or holy owned?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “wholly owned”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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