What is Corporate Linkage?
The short answer
Corporate linkage describes the relationships between legal entities, such as parent companies, subsidiaries and other members of a corporate group. It turns individual company records into a view of how businesses are connected. Each relationship should identify its type and the evidence supporting it.
Corporate Linkage: why it matters
A supplier, buyer or acquisition target may form part of a larger group. Understanding that structure can reveal shared exposure, connected customers or additional entities that need review. It also prevents separate records from being interpreted as independent businesses when they are part of a common structure.
How to assess it in practice
Resolve each entity before creating a relationship. Record whether the connection represents ownership, control or another documented association. Capture relevant percentages and dates where available, and retain the source. Distinguish direct parent relationships from the highest parent found in the available evidence. Refresh links when filings or other reliable sources show a change.
Worked example
A procurement team has contracts with three suppliers that have different names. A linkage review finds that all three are subsidiaries of the same parent. The team can now examine its group exposure while retaining each subsidiary as a separate legal counterparty.
Two companies share a website but have no established ownership link. Store the brand association without presenting it as a confirmed corporate group edge.
Distinctions that matter
Corporate linkage maps entity-to-entity relationships. UBO analysis follows relevant ownership and control paths to individuals. Entity resolution determines whether records describe the same entity before either kind of relationship is created.
Evidence and review output
Review these
- Entity identifiers at both ends
- Relationship type and source
- Effective dates and group boundary
The review should produce
A dated set of supported entity relationships, distinct from branding or other inferred associations.
Across this family
Define what makes an entity part of the group before drawing relationships. Legal control, accounting consolidation and commercial affiliation are not identical. Store relationship types and dates so a user can understand why two entities are connected without assuming they share every obligation.
A note from practice
Corporate linkage should state the relationship type and supporting evidence. A common address, brand or director can indicate a connection without proving a parent-subsidiary relationship.
Limits and common mistakes
A common address or website does not establish a parent-subsidiary relationship by itself. Avoid creating ownership links from weak similarities. Historical relationships should not be silently displayed as current, and a group graph should make missing information visible rather than imply that every layer has been found.
Frequently asked questions
Is shared branding proof of ownership?
Can linked entities be merged into one record?
How does linkage support UBO analysis?
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Related topics
- Beneficial ownership & controlUltimate Beneficial Owner (UBO)An ultimate beneficial owner is a natural person who ultimately owns or controls an entity. The immediate shareholder may be another company, so identifying a UBO can require following an ownership chain and examining control separately. A corporate owner should not be presented as the final answer to a question about the people behind a business.
- Entity matching & transformationEntity ResolutionEntity resolution determines whether different records refer to the same real-world entity. For company data, it connects names, identifiers, addresses and other evidence while distinguishing similar but unrelated businesses. A resolved match should be explainable, especially when it changes ownership, risk or a commercial workflow.
- Official registers & extractsCompany RegisterA company register is an official system that records information about legal entities and their filings in a jurisdiction. Depending on the register, a record may provide a legal name, registration number, registered address, legal form, status and filed documents. The fields, access methods and legal significance differ between jurisdictions.
See the registry record behind every answer.
Primary, government-sourced data on 600M+ companies in 200+ countries, with full source attribution.