Ownership layers

How this was computed

• Population: 12,221 live brands (active or licensed; 5 discontinued brands left out). Of these, 11,966 have a controlling owner today (owned outright or at least 50%) and form a chain. 252 are held only by licence or a minority stake and 3 have no recorded owner; neither group has a chain, so they are not in any figure below.
• A chain reads brand, direct owner, any intermediate parents, ultimate owner. Layers is the number of companies strictly between the brand and its ultimate owner, so 0 means the ultimate owner owns the brand directly and 1 means one intermediate company. Chains are followed up controlling company-to-company links and stop at 12 layers.
• Countries crossed are the headquarters countries of the owners on the chain, counting each country once. The brand's own origin country is not included.
• Cycle check: all 3,040 companies were walked up their controlling links with a visited set. Cycles found: 0. Walks that hit the 12-layer limit: 0.
• Cells with fewer than 5 brands are shown as counts, not percentages.

Layers between brand and ultimate owner

Denominator: 11,966 live brands with a controlling owner.

The longest chains

All 121 chains at the maximum recorded depth (1 layer), each step named, read from the brand upward. Ordered by countries crossed, then ultimate owner.

Ultimate owners with layered structures

18 ultimate owners have at least one brand with a company in between. Ordered by deepest chain, then by number of layered brands. This describes recorded structure only and is not a ranking of owners.

By top-level category

Brands with at least one layer, of the live controlled brands in each category. Counts only where a category has fewer than 5 brands.

By type of ultimate owner

Countries a chain crosses

Distinct headquarters countries among the owners on each chain; denominator 11,966 chains.

Chains crossing 3 or more owner countries: 0 of 11,966. Because the deepest recorded chain has only 2 owners, no chain can reach 3 countries on owner headquarters alone. If the brand's own origin country were counted as a further country, 18 chains would reach 3.

What this does not show

• Real corporate depth. Chains are only as long as the links recorded; Brandtree records an owner's subsidiary only where a filing names it, so a shallow chain can mean a thin record. The figures say nothing about why a chain is short or long.
• Licensed brands and minority holdings (252 brands) and brands with no recorded owner (3); they have no controlling chain.
• Past owners. Only the current controlling chain is read.
• Any judgement of owners: a deeper recorded structure is not better or worse than a flat one.