Is there a limit to a recursive structure of 51% holding companies? If not, one entity could hold all the decision making power without basically owning equity (in the limit)
Nice. You could even have a fractal structure. I dare a billionaire to make a Mandelbrot set with a bunch of shell companies.
Something like this was a minor plot point in Accellerando (book by Charles Stross). IP being rapidly bought & sold between a network of related inter-owned companies, to avoid ever holding it long enough to be sued or something.
Each company C_n would own 51% of the company C_{n-1} (with C_1 being the actual company). At every point each company owns a sizable chunk of equity.