Beneficial Owner (BO)

A Beneficial Owner (BO) is the natural person who ultimately owns or controls a company, other legal entity, or legal arrangement, or on whose behalf a transaction is ultimately conducted. The concept focuses on the ultimate human owner or controller, not only on the formally registered legal owner.

EU / Germany

Under German anti-money-laundering law, a beneficial owner is generally the natural person who ultimately owns or controls the entity. This usually includes a natural person who directly or indirectly holds more than 25% of the capital shares, controls more than 25% of the voting rights, or exercises control in a comparable way. If no such person can be identified, the legal representative, managing shareholder, or partner may be treated as the substitute beneficial owner.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the closely related official concept is the Person with Significant Control (PSC). A person is a PSC if they directly or indirectly hold more than 25% of the shares, more than 25% of the voting rights, have the right to appoint or remove a majority of the board, or otherwise exercise significant influence or control. The UK register also allows certain Relevant Legal Entities (RLEs) to be registrable under the PSC regime. Therefore, the UK PSC disclosure framework is not fully identical to the stricter BO definition, which ultimately always refers to a natural person.

International context

Across jurisdictions, the core purpose of beneficial ownership rules is to identify the person who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity or arrangement. However, the exact thresholds, terminology, and disclosure rules differ by country.

How North Data presents BO-related information

In some cases, the “BO” label in North Data may be broader than the strict legal definition of a beneficial owner. Depending on the country and source, North Data may display the following types of information:

1. Actual beneficial owner or transparency-register-type data, where available.
   Example: In some cases, such as data from Luxembourg, a natural person is shown as the BO. This most closely reflects the classic legal BO concept.
   https://www.northdata.com/?id=6130280367652864
2. UK PSC- or RLE-related control information.
   In the United Kingdom, the official PSC framework may include not only a natural person but also a Relevant Legal Entity (RLE). As a result, a company may appear in North Data in a BO- or control-related context.
   https://www.northdata.com/?id=6468516442800128
3. Reportable voting rights or other control-related information used as a product representation of ownership or control.
   In some cases, North Data may also display voting-rights-based or comparable control information, even where this is not BO data in the strict legal sense.

For this reason, the “BO” label in North Data is not always fully identical to the narrow legal definition of beneficial owner.