CROSS HOLDING

A situation in which a publicly-traded corporation owns stock in another publicly-traded company. So, technically, listed corporations own securities issued by other listed corporations. Cross holding can lead to double counting, whereby the equity of each company is counted twice when determining value. When double counting occurs, the security's value is counted twice, which can result in estimating the wrong value of the two companies.

Companies that have cross holdings are susceptible to confusion and management holdout in cases of company mergers and acquisitions, because one company might refuse consent to the other, and vice versa. Also, if Company A holds stocks or bonds in Company B, the value of this security might be counted twice, in error, because these securities would be counted when determining the value of the company issuing the security, and again when looking over the securities held by the other company.