One which holds more than a half of the equity share capital of another company or is a member and/or controls a big percentage of the Board of Directors of one or more of other companies which in this case are called subsidiaries for such a holding company.
A holding company may be viewed as a “financial institution” in the sense that it uses shareholders capital to acquire controlling interests in other companies by acquiring up to 51% of the other company’s shares or even more.
Kavungya answered the question on March 11, 2019 at 13:10