It is not uncommon for corporations to own stock in other corporations. The ownership could be either through an acquisition or the creation of a new corporation by the parent company. Sometimes, for various reasons, the parent company wants to separate their ownership in the subsidiary corporation, most of the time it’s because the subsidiary is in an unrelated business from the parent or the subsidiary has more growth prospects as a separate company from the parent. That separation from the parent corporation can be either through a spin-off, split-off, split-up, carve-out, or simply a sale of the subsidiary. This article will focus on the first three and briefly discuss a carve-out; a sale of a corporation is straightforward and will not be covered.