Holding Company

[finnigan]

I recently tried playing a game as a holding company. Strickly a holding company. Dissappointed with the amount of controll I could use over the subsidairies I had aquired. The idea was to buy a controlling interest in companys that were performing poorly, turn them around, making them profitable, and selling off their stock at huge profit. I must mention that I rarely play the stock market, and thought that a change of the supply chain and retail war type game would be different and challanging for me. But without merging and taking "direct controll" of a company you can't do anything but play the stock market with their cash holdings. Even then, your parent companys other stock holdings get in the way of effiective stock investment.

Possible Options...
1. Ability to fire/replace subsidaires CEO.
2. Ability to force shut down firms and selling of subsidaires assets
3. Ability to micromanage firms, set prices, controll advertising spending etc.

I know this sounds like "direct controll " but simply would like to run the company, in which I own controlling interest, without eliminating it and its stock from the game.

[Kristo]

I agree with these ideas. (i even had the same idea in one of my topics down in the list). Will be fun to play like a holding corporation - maybe like a starting option?

And I can add some feats:

1/ In real life you can acquire r&d tech levels if you're a holding company, you can use them in your corporation(s) or sell them (i study law in Bulgaria and i realise that this maybe just in our country, so gotta check us law about that)

2/ Issuing new shares of the controlled corporations, loaning money from banks, changing brand strategies. Possibly setting the divident rates or organising training for the emploees. Controlling every aspect of advertising in the subsidiaries.

3/ Free-transfer of shares of third parties from owned corporation to parent one (the holding corporation) - which is - if you own 90% of Corporation AAA, and Corp AAA owns 25% of Corporation BBB - you can transfer these 25% shares directly to the parent corporation. This can be helpful to organise your companies or to acquire new one without buying shares.

4/ Ability to buy up to 8-10% of the shares of companies at once, in comparison with 5% limit that's in normal corporation play

5/ Maybe ability to buy/sell bonds, if this idea become reality one day.

6/ Can't buy or build any type of firms, with the "media" firms as exception.

7/ Ability to merge 2 of your corporations into 1, but not directly merging them with your "parent" corporation - as Finnigan suggested in previous post.

8/ Ability to acquire tech levels of your owned corporations for free, in order to sell them/transfer them to other corporations or your other subsidiaries.

[WilliamMGary]

+1

[matejfore]

+1

[finnigan]

More options are nice...kristo brings in some good options. I guess in essence I'm looking for new ways to invest capital. That seems to be what everybody is looking for in the formus and posts I've read. I play at a 250 difficulty level and by year five or so I'm raking in some serious cash. Annual profits of $100-$200 million a year, but what to do with all that cash? Stock market always seems like the next logical step. Stock prices have usally soared by then so %5 of a company costs you $20 mill or so. The way I look at it thats a perfect place to invest large amounts of my cash holdings to make great profits. BUT i can't see buying anymore than %15 or maybe even %20 of any one company. If you buy more % your taking a pretty big risk, whereas you can't get your cash out quickly enough without taking a loss on the price per share and you have no controll even if you own %50 or more. The only way to get your money out making a profit with a large %, sort of, is 1. LONG term investment 2. Miracle stock performance 3. Merging and managing their assets and product lines. ANOTHER BUT, if I wanting a new product line and expand into new markets it is cheaper to just build it myself instead of spending $300million to buy and force a merger. So without adding another feature to the game like power plants, bond market or a mayor political run, which are good ideas, you can simply improve on what you have. Stock markets are allready there, ready for some modifications that allow the player to invest large amounts of cash, make a profit, without elimating the competition. A Holding company.

[3rdJack]

Hi,

instead of starting a new topic I might aswell post this here.
I would really love too see this feature come to life and seems like alot
of other people feels like this to, atleast according to the stickied poll.

The option to really be able to control more then 1 company and subsidiaries,
with some added stock options too support it would change so much in this game.

David, would you please be so kind and answer, might we see this added to the game in the future?

[Rawfulz]

Kind of an old topic.

But I agree.

+1

[jondonnis]

I recently tried playing a game as a holding company. Strickly a holding company. Dissappointed with the amount of controll I could use over the subsidairies I had aquired. The idea was to buy a controlling interest in companys that were performing poorly, turn them around, making them profitable, and selling off their stock at huge profit. I must mention that I rarely play the stock market, and thought that a change of the supply chain and retail war type game would be different and challanging for me. But without merging and taking "direct controll" of a company you can't do anything but play the stock market with their cash holdings. Even then, your parent companys other stock holdings get in the way of effiective stock investment.

Possible Options...
1. Ability to fire/replace subsidaires CEO.
2. Ability to force shut down firms and selling of subsidaires assets
3. Ability to micromanage firms, set prices, controll advertising spending etc.

I know this sounds like "direct controll " but simply would like to run the company, in which I own controlling interest, without eliminating it and its stock from the game.

Sounds a bit like Gordon Gekko

[WilliamMGary]

3. Ability to micromanage firms, set prices, controll advertising spending etc.

Ability to set the CEO pricing strategy would be the best way to handle this.

[jondonnis]

I recently tried playing a game as a holding company. Strickly a holding company. Dissappointed with the amount of controll I could use over the subsidairies I had aquired. The idea was to buy a controlling interest in companys that were performing poorly, turn them around, making them profitable, and selling off their stock at huge profit. I must mention that I rarely play the stock market, and thought that a change of the supply chain and retail war type game would be different and challanging for me. But without merging and taking "direct controll" of a company you can't do anything but play the stock market with their cash holdings. Even then, your parent companys other stock holdings get in the way of effiective stock investment.

Possible Options...
1. Ability to fire/replace subsidaires CEO.
2. Ability to force shut down firms and selling of subsidaires assets
3. Ability to micromanage firms, set prices, controll advertising spending etc.

I know this sounds like "direct controll " but simply would like to run the company, in which I own controlling interest, without eliminating it and its stock from the game.

Now I've run into this as I'd forgotten how little control you have, I agree.

I was buying shares in a company that specialises in toys. She's doing a bit crap, I didn't want to lose my money I'd invested so took a controlling stake in the hope I could sort things out. But no, I can't lower her prices, I can't cut training and I can't sell any of the buildings. I also can't use any of the tech she owns. Only option is to buy her out totally which I don't really want to do.