Understanding Organization Ownership

Summary

The organization object has rich details regarding the organization and its ownership structure. You can either create an organization through our create organization API or by executing a data-fetch workflow like AUS-Organization-Profile or AUS-Organization-Ownership. Once you have the entityId of the created organization, you can fetch its details using the retrieve organization API.

The organization object mainly consists of:

• Details of the organization - This includes name, registration details, addresses, phone numbers, web URLs, etc. For more details on these fields, please refer to our retrieve organization API documentation.
• Organization ownership - This includes the ownership details of the organization, including shareholdings and ultimate beneficial owners. This page focuses on organization ownership.

Organization Ownership

These fields are of interest to you if you want to understand the ownership details of the organization.

shareCapital

The total value of shares issued by the company to its holders. It typically includes both the nominal value of the shares as well as any premium paid by the shareholders.

shareInterests

Represents the specific equity interests held by shareholders (for example, ordinary shares, preference shares, or options) and their associated holders.

Each shareInterest includes:

• Members who hold the interest (supports joint holdings)
• Whether the interest is beneficial or non-beneficial
• The ownership percentage

Associated Entities

The following are the associated entities of the organization. Each object in the array has a unique entityId. You can then use this to get more information about the entity in the linkedIndividuals or linkedOrganizations maps of the organization object.

shareholders

The shareholders of a company. It includes details such as the number of shares held by each shareholder and their ownership percentages. Look up the entityId in the linkedIndividuals or linkedOrganizations maps of the organization object to get more information about the shareholder.

officials

The entities that hold official positions or roles within a company, such as directors or company secretaries. It includes details such as their positions, appointment dates, and other relevant information. Look up the entityId in the linkedIndividuals or linkedOrganizations maps of the organization object to get more information about the official.

Ownership Insights

We provide the following fields to draw insights into the ownership of the organization. Ownership Insights are calculated based on the ownership policy configured according to your requirements.

ownershipPolicy

Defines the configuration and specific threshold values used to identify blocking entities, UBOs, and other owners.

ultimateBeneficialOwners

UBO stands for “Ultimate Beneficial Owner.” UBO(s) are the natural person(s) who ultimately own or control a company. This provides information about the individuals who have a significant level of control or ownership in a company, either directly or indirectly.

blockingEntities

Entities linked to the parent entity that currently prevent a complete ownership picture (for example, missing filings or opaque structures) and may require further investigation.

otherOwners

The other owners of the company, who aren’t necessarily UBOs.

Traversing Ownership Tree

Use the combination of associated-entity arrays and linked-entity maps to navigate the structure:

• Associated entity arrays (on the focus organization): officials, shareholders
  • Contain summary items, each with an entityId
• Linked entity maps (siblings on the same object): linkedIndividuals, linkedOrganizations
  • Provide full records keyed by entityId

Step-by-step:

1. Start at the focus organization. Inspect its officials and shareholders arrays.
2. For each item, note the entityId and whether it represents an individual or organization.
3. Resolve details via:
   • Individuals → linkedIndividuals[entityId]
   • Organizations → linkedOrganizations[entityId]
4. If you land on a linked organization and need to go deeper, repeat the same process using that organization’s officials and shareholders (the details for these should be present in the top level linkedIndividuals/linkedOrganizations).
5. Stop when you reach your analysis depth, there are no more organizations to follow, or you’ve visited an entity already (to avoid cycles).

Example (simplified):

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{
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  "officials": [ { "entityId": "ind_123" } ],
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  "shareholders": [ { "entityId": "org_456" } ],
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  "linkedIndividuals": {
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    "ind_123": { "name": "Jane Smith", "role": "Director" },
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    "ind_789": { "name": "Alex Lee", "ownershipPercent": 30 },
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    "ind_456": { "name": "John Doe", "role": "Director" }
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  },
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  "linkedOrganizations": {
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    "org_456": {
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      "name": "Subsidiary Pty Ltd",
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      "shareholders": [ { "entityId": "ind_789" }, { "entityId": "org_789" } ],
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    },
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    "org_789": {
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      "name": "Subsidiary Pty Ltd",
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      "shareholders": [ { "entityId": "ind_456" } ],
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    }
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  }
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}

In this example, the focus organization has one official (ind_123) and one shareholder organization (org_456). You can resolve each entity’s full details from the linked maps, and then follow org_456’s shareholders. This will lead you to ind_789 and org_789. You can then resolve ind_789 and org_789’s full details from the linked maps.

You can continue this process to traverse the ownership tree.

Note:

• The linkedIndividuals and linkedOrganizations maps are flat and live at the top level of the response for the focus organization. There are no nested linked maps per linked organization—use the same top-level maps to resolve any entityId you encounter while traversing.
• If an entityId is not present in the corresponding linked map, treat it as incomplete data. You can fetch details on-demand via the API or surface a “details unavailable” state.
• To avoid cycles and overly deep traversals (for example, cross-holdings), keep a set of visited entityIds and consider a maximum traversal depth.