Controlled Group - Two Plans to Avoid Audit and Permissive Aggregation Question

I am looking at setting up two plans for a controlled group. The entity structure is as folllows:

Company A is owned 100% by husband and Company A owns 100% of Company A1 and 70% of Company A2 (the other 30% are unrelated owners) Company A1 and A2 are restaurants and Company A is a management company. 
 

Company B is owned 100% by wife (married to husband above and husband and wife participate in all businesses) and Company B owns 100% of Company B1 and 100% of Company B2, Company B1 and B2 are restaurants and Company B is a management company. 
 

If we did one plan to cover all entities it would have enough participants to require an audit. What we are looking to do is have two plans (both plans would be designed the exact same) and Plan 1 would cover Company A and Company A1 and A2. Plan 2 would cover Company B and Company B1 and B2. By having two plans each plan would have less than 100 participants and neither one would need an audit. 
 

I have the following questions:

1. the affiliated service group rules don’t apply here since these entities are mainly restaurants, right?

2. Wouldn’t Plan 1 technically be a multiple employer plan because of the 70% ownership of company A2? (Doesn’t rise to 80%)

3. If Plan 1 is a multiple employer plan (which I think it is) can Plan 1 be permissively aggregated with Plan 2 for testing purposes (coverage and nondiscrimination)? Technically wouldn’t you just be aggregating Company A and A1 in Plan 1 with Company B, B1 and B2 in Plan 2 and company A2 would be tested separately? 

4. Are there any risks to structuring two plans instead of having just one to avoid an audit? 

1. I'm entirely not sure about ASG but I think you're right.

2. Yes, plan 1 would be a multiple employer plan.

3. Correct, you could permissively aggregate except for Company A2 which is not part of CG.

4. I'm not a fan of the strategy but know people in this forum who see it or do it all the time. I think a detailed cost/benefit analysis should be done in terms the audit cost savings (or simply the overall cost of administering one "large" plan) versus the (total) cost of maintaining two separate plans. Also, in the restaurant industry there is often high turnover, so each plan would need to properly manage the timing of paying out vested terminations to avoid future participant count surprises. 

Thank you for the response!