Consolidated financial statements report the aggregate of separate legal entities.

A parent company can operate as a separate corporation apart from its subsidiary companies.

An investor looking solely at Company XYZ's holding company financial statements could easily get a misleading view of the entity's performance.

The Financial Statements of the Company shall be laid by the Board of Directors before the shareholders at the Annual General Meeting for each financial year.

Key Points to Note in Subsidiary Definition under CA, 2013: Subsidiary includes Associate Companies and Joint Ventures both in India and Foreign country.

Companies commonly break out their consolidated statements by division or subsidiary so investors can see the relative performance of each, but in many cases this is not required, especially if the company owns 100% of the division or subsidiary.

To learn more about how to read consolidated financial statements, click here to check out our tutorial, Financial Statement Analysis for Beginners.