GEO Group has a lot of subsidiaries

Recently, I've spent some time digging through SEC filings and other uninteresting government paperwork in an effort to link up some of these major players on LittleSis. I stumbled across these lists of GEO Group subsidiaries, many of which are smaller companies that have been acquired through mergers and whatnot.

GEO Group is one of the largest private prison providers (CoreCivic being the other major player). It is the owner of the many Abraxas facilities throughout Pennsylvania, which mostly provide juvenile detention and residential treatment programs. They've also been in the news lately for housing ICE detainees.

The colors are not particularly meaningful - I started trying to lump them together geographically, but realized much more research is needed to accurately describe the relationships between these various corporations.

Mergers and acquisitions aside, tax benefits are the main reason for structures like this. It's not uncommon to see ABC Corp purchase vehicles under ABC Fleet Holdings LLC, who in turn leases them to ABC Transportation LLC, that provides transportation services for ABC Corp, for example. ABC Telco Corp might handle their IT department, and turn around to "lease" phone lines to the parent company for an outrageous price. In practice, of course, these are just the regular old company vehicles, but fuel and maintenance and insurance are spread out in a way to compartmentalize losses, minimize tax liability, and maximize profit.

By sinking all the expenses into one cost center, say ABC Failed Project Corp, LLC, that company can declare bankruptcy when the time comes, and while ABC Fleet Holdings LLC shows millions in deprecating assets - used vehicles - both ABC Transportation and ABC Telco Corp show huge profits. Additionally, the real estate might be moved into ABC Property Holdings, LLC while the building itself is demolished and turned into a parking lot.

With GEO Group, however, there are a lot of similarly-named companies, which seems suspicious to me (a nobody). You can explore the full map here.