Draw the group structure chart

The partner needs the client's group chart for the kick-off meeting or the memo, and there is no usable chart to start from. You draw it as a structure in the matter: every company is an element, every holding is a line with its percentage, and the whole chart stays editable until the day it goes out.

Two questions decide how you build it. Is the group in a public register? If it is, import the ownership chain first and draw only what the register cannot show: see import a group from the company register. Does the client already have a chart? Then rebuild that instead: see turn the client's existing chart into a structure.

Create the structure in the matter

1. Go to the matter and open its structures. The page is headed This matter's structures.

2. Click Create new.

3. In Name your Structure, give it a Name that says what it shows and when, such as "Beta Holding A/S: group before closing". The Matter is already filled in.

4. Use Description for the source and date of the chart, for example "From the client's shareholder list of 1 September 2026", so a colleague knows how current it is.

5. Leave Template at Blank for a new chart, and click Save. The structure opens on an empty canvas.

   

Place the top company

The canvas has two toolbar layouts. Traditional works like an Office ribbon, with the tools under Home, Import, Export and so on. Modern puts the same tools as icons in a bar on the left; hover over an icon to see its name. Switch between them with the layout menu on the canvas controls. The steps below name the tools; they are the same in both layouts.

1. Click Add Element. A panel opens with your firm's standard elements, grouped by category, and plain shapes under Basic shapes.

   

2. Type in Search... to find the element you need, such as your firm's company element. Using the firm's elements, rather than a plain shape, keeps the chart in the house style and tells the reader what kind of entity each box is.

3. Drag the element onto the canvas, or click it and then click where it should go.

4. Double-click the element and type the company's name, for example "Beta Holding A/S".

Add the subsidiaries

1. Before you start, choose what kind of line the new companies get. Click Default Relationship (in Traditional, Add Relationship under Home) and pick your firm's ownership relationship. If most holdings are wholly owned, click Change Value beside the chosen relationship and enter "100%": every line you add from now on carries it.

2. Select the parent company. Small handles appear on its edges.

3. Click the handle on the side where the subsidiary should go, once for each subsidiary. Each click adds a new company of the same kind, connected to the parent with the default relationship, and spreads the new companies out side by side.

   

4. For a long chain of companies, hold Shift while you click the handle. The new companies are placed alternately left and right, each pair below the last, which keeps a deep group readable.

5. Double-click each new company and type its name.

To copy a branch, such as a sub-group that repeats under two holding companies, select the companies and press Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V (⌘C and ⌘V on a Mac). The lines between the copied companies come with them.

Set the ownership on each line

1. Click a line to select it. The relationship toolbar appears above it.

2. In Relationship, choose the kind of line: ownership, or another relationship your firm has set up, such as a loan or an agreement.

3. In Value, enter the shareholding, for example "60%". Where a company has several shareholders, enter each one's share on its own line, so the percentages on the lines into that company add up.

   

4. To write on a line instead, for example "Share purchase agreement", double-click the line where the text should sit and type it.

5. Type changes how the line is drawn (straight, angled or curved, and its thickness). Use the same type throughout so the chart reads as one.

Add the country and registration details

1. Select a company. The element toolbar appears.

2. Click Edit country and choose the country it is incorporated in. The flag appears on the company, so a reader sees at a glance where each entity sits.

   

3. In Element, check the element type: a branch, a partnership or a fund should not look like a company. Change it here rather than redrawing the box.

4. Click Edit Attributes to record facts such as the registration number on the company, and choose whether each one shows on the chart.

Group companies that belong together

A tax group, a fund and its portfolio companies, or the target group in a deal often need a frame around them.

1. Click Add Grouping, then click on the canvas, or drag it there.

2. Resize the grouping around the companies, and drag each company into it. A company dropped inside the grouping moves with it from then on.

3. To say what the grouping is, add a Text element inside it, for example "Danish joint taxation".

   

Correct as you go

• Change, do not redraw. Select a company or line and change its name, type or value in place. The lines stay attached.
• Undo reverses your last change, and Redo puts it back.

Tips from practice

• Set the default relationship first. Ten clicks on a handle with ownership and 100% preset saves editing ten lines afterwards.
• Date the chart. Groups change. Put the date and source in the Description, and on the chart itself when it goes to the client.
• One chart, several slides. Draw the group once, then show the steps of a reorganisation on further slides rather than in a new structure: see build a step plan for a reorganisation.
• Work the way you are used to. If you know PowerPoint, start in Traditional; see set up the Structure canvas the way you work.

Next, tidy up the chart before it goes out, then send the structure as an editable PowerPoint.