Who owns ELLE?
ELLE is owned by Lagardère (France, EPA: MMB).[1]
This ownership is reported in official statements but has not yet been matched to a regulatory filing.
Evidence: 2025 Universal Registration Document, Lagardère SA, 31 March 2026. Last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Lagardère SA reported
- Owner HQ
- 🇫🇷 France, Paris
- Origin
- 🇫🇷 France, Paris
- Founded
- 1945
- Category
- Media & entertainment › Publishing › Newspapers & magazines
- Parent ticker
- EPA: MMB
- Trademark registrant
- Hachette Filipacchi Presse (USPTO)
- Last verified
- · 2 sources
About ELLE
ELLE is the women's magazine founded in Paris in 1945, which celebrated its eightieth birthday in November 2025. Lagardère owns the trademark and no longer publishes most editions itself: it runs ELLE as an international licensing business and collects royalties, which is why the American edition is published by Hearst and others by publishers in more than forty countries. Licensing accounted for the large majority of Lagardère News revenue in 2025, and now extends beyond media into areas such as hospitality.
Trademark record for ELLE
The USPTO record for the ELLE mark lists Hachette Filipacchi Presse as the owner of record (serial number 74540441). A trademark is often held by a group company rather than the listed parent, so the registrant's name can differ from the owner named above.[2]
Ownership timeline of ELLE
Where ELLE sits in Lagardère
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Lagardère ownership tree →
See the full Lagardère brand portfolio (21) →
Other brands owned by Lagardère
Lagardère controls 21 brands on Brandtree, 18 of them in media & entertainment.
Also in media & entertainment
- Bragelonne (2000)
- Calmann-Lévy (1836)
- Europe 1 (1955)
- Europe 2
- Fayard (1857)
- Grasset (1907)
- Grupo Anaya (1988)
- Hachette Book Group
- Hachette Livre (1826)
- Hachette UK
- Larousse
- Le Journal du Dimanche (1948)
- Le Livre de Poche (1953)
- Le Routard (1973)
- Little, Brown
- RFM
- Workman Publishing (1968)
Other brands in newspapers & magazines, and who owns them
The 70 brands in newspapers & magazines on Brandtree belong to 16 owners. The largest is Reach, with 9; Lagardère has 2.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| BelfastLive | Reach | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| Beobachter | Ringier | 🇨🇭 Switzerland |
| Aftenposten | Schibsted Media | 🇳🇴 Norway |
| Condé Nast | Advance | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Country Life | Future | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| Car and Driver | Hearst | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Brisbane Times | Nine | 🇦🇺 Australia |
| ARQ | Grupo Clarín | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
About the owner: Lagardère
Lagardère is a publicly listed company headquartered in Paris, France, founded in 1992. Brandtree records 21 brands under its control, and it is listed as EPA: MMB.
Lagardère is a French group created in 1992 and built around two businesses: Lagardère Publishing, the world's third-largest consumer publishing group, and Lagardère Travel Retail, which runs more than 4,800 shops in around 1,000 airports and railway stations. A smaller Lagardère Live segment holds the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, the ELLE trademark and the radio stations Europe 1, Europe 2 and RFM. The group has more than 33,000 employees in over 50 countries. Since the December 2024 demerger of Vivendi, its controlling shareholder has been Louis Hachette Group, which holds about two-thirds of the capital.
🇫🇷 ELLE and other French brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 318 brands that began in France. 99 of them (31%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; ELLE is not one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of ELLE?
The parent company of ELLE is Lagardère, a publicly listed company headquartered in France.
Is ELLE owned by Hearst?
No. ELLE is owned by Lagardère, not Hearst.
Is ELLE French?
Yes. ELLE originated in France in 1945 and its owner, Lagardère, is also headquartered in France.
Is ELLE still owned by Lagardère?
Yes. As of 28 September 2026, ELLE is still owned by Lagardère. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (2) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] 2025 Universal Registration Document — Lagardère SA, Annual report, published 31 March 2026; retrieved 28 September 2026.
- [2] USPTO: ELLE, serial 74540441, registration 2120688 — United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark registry; retrieved 28 September 2026.
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