Interestingly, Moody's tends to rate the debt of bank holding companies lower than the debt of their operating subsidiaries.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: The Dodd-Frank Downgrade

If it fails to do that, the agreement to let it borrow from its operating subsidiaries is off the table.

FORBES: AIG Fights For Survival

This rule allows a foreign holding company to receive dividends from operating subsidiaries and transfer the proceeds to other foreign subsidiaries without U.S. taxation.

FORBES: Fiscal Cliff Tax Deal Extends Key International Rule

Clearwire Corporation (Nasdaq:CLWR), through its operating subsidiaries, is a leading provider of 4G wireless broadband services offering services in areas of the U.S. where more than 130 million people live.

ENGADGET: Dish Network makes an offer to buy Clearwire, even though Sprint was already buying Clearwire

Will Honeybourne, a First Reserve managing director in Houston who helped spearhead the deal--and beat out rival buyout shop Candover--notes that Abbot's rig-building and operating subsidiaries Bentec and KCA Deutag are particularly strong in Russia, West Africa, the Middle East and Libya.

FORBES: First Reserve Bets On Abbot

The FDIC's current approach, subject to change at the whim of the bureaucracy, is that it will seek to protect the creditors, and particularly the short-term creditors, of the operating subsidiaries while seeking to impose losses on the long-term creditors of the parent companies.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: The Dodd-Frank Downgrade

In the early 1970s it had over 400 separate subsidiaries operating in over 70 different countries.

ECONOMIST: Idea

The leaders of Berkshire's roughly 80 subsidiaries and all the operating companies would reject a leader that tried to change the way the company works, he said.

NPR: What's Happening At Buffett's Annual Meeting

Buffett leads Berkshire with a tiny staff of roughly two dozen at its headquarters, and he largely lets the CEOs of all Berkshire's subsidiaries make all the operating decisions.

NPR: What's Happening At Buffett's Annual Meeting