I don't understand the purpose of owning another company

[jondonnis]

So I like playing the stock market in game and getting to a point where I have the controlling amount of shares for a company. I think it says you're now the controlling owner or something (can't remember). However, during this stage there appears to be no benifit. You get no profit from the company and can't do anything with it. Only thing you appear to be able to do, is use it's money to buy shares.

So, can anyone explain what's the purpose of owning the controlling amount of shares, lets say 56% (if I remember right gives you control of that company). I understand when you merger the company you can then sell all it's assets.

Is there not an option to buy out the company instead of merge it. So all its mess doesn't get muddled up with yours, so if I wanted to just break the company up for assets, I could easily work out what was theirs and what was mine?

[jondonnis]

I found the manual again and have played again after about a year out. Taking ownership means you have access to all that companies monies to invest in the stock market. Also, if that company owns any of your shares, you can force them to sell them so you can buy them back.

Played a new game recently after a year and it was odd because I spotted one company slowly going under that I had shares in, but then making a bit of money. I looked for its business' so I could help those out, but it had none. It literally had no business' setup and was purely funded by playing the stock market. It happened to have stocks in my company and another which were keeping it a float as it could sell those when needed cash.

From it's shares being only worth $15 they are now over $300 and because I've been using it's cash to buy shares in decent companies, waiting for price to go up, selling them giving it a lot more capital, it's finally starting to build up an empire. Nice.

Quite interesting seeing it do that.