There is no reason a holding company can't be private. It would work exactly the same way. Instead of sharing the 30% from each company with shareholders he could keep it all himself.
If, as is claimed, the pps has been driven to artificial levels by 'shorters' but it really is worth a lot more, and if there are only a few million shares (instead of the actual 10 billion) then the only smart course would be to take it private. Pay a premium for the outstanding shares, say 100%, get them for .0002 each. Multiply that by the imaginary share count of what 350 million and he could walk away with the whole thing for $70 K.