Forever 21 is owned by Authentic Brands (the United States), which acquired the brand on 1 February 2020 for $81 million.[1][2] Forever 21 was founded in 1984 in Los Angeles, California and was independent until 2020.
This ownership is reported in official statements but has not yet been matched to a regulatory filing.
Evidence: Authentic Brands Group — about, Authentic Brands Group LLC. Last checked .
Forever 21 was founded by Korean immigrants and grew to hundreds of stores before filing for bankruptcy twice, in 2019 and again in 2025. Authentic Brands holds the trademark, so the name can outlive the retail business entirely. Its founders arrived in America with almost nothing and built a business that at its peak ran more than seven hundred stores across nearly fifty countries.
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Authentic Brands ownership tree →
See the full Authentic Brands brand portfolio (6) →
Authentic Brands controls 6 brands on Brandtree, 6 of them in apparel, footwear & accessories.
The 24 brands in fast fashion on Brandtree belong to 16 owners. The largest is ASOS, with 3.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| ASOS Design | ASOS | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| ONLY | Bestseller | 🇩🇰 Denmark |
| boohoo | Debenhams Group | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| FOX | Fox Group | 🇮🇱 Israel |
| Reserved | LPP | 🇵🇱 Poland |
| Mr Price | Mr Price Group | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| ROMWE | Shein | 🇸🇬 Singapore |
| Beau Monde by Giordano | Giordano | 🇭🇰 Hong Kong |
Authentic Brands is a privately held company headquartered in New York, New York, United States, founded in 2010. Brandtree records 6 brands under its control.
Authentic Brands buys trademarks rather than businesses. It owns the names and licenses them to operators who actually make and sell the products, so a shop with its brand above the door is usually run by someone else entirely. It also owns the estates of several dead celebrities.
Authentic Brands: full profile, brands and acquisition history →
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Forever 21 is not one of them.
Authentic Brands bought Forever 21 out of bankruptcy for about $81 million, jointly with the mall owners Simon Property Group and Brookfield. Two of its largest landlords buying the retailer was a striking arrangement: they were, in effect, buying their own tenant to keep the space occupied.
The parent company of Forever 21 is Authentic Brands, a privately held company headquartered in the United States.
Yes. Forever 21 originated in the United States in 1984 and its owner, Authentic Brands, is also headquartered in the United States.
Authentic Brands completed its acquisition of Forever 21 on 1 February 2020, after announcing the deal on 1 February 2020. The deal was valued at $81 million (enterprise value).
Forever 21 was an independent company from its founding in 1984 in Los Angeles, California until Authentic Brands acquired it in 2020.
Yes. As of 16 September 2026, Forever 21 is still owned by Authentic Brands. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
Report a correction Opens a pre-filled GitHub issue. See our corrections policy.
Brandtree needs to remember this choice and does not set any other cookie unless you accept.
If you choose “Accept all”, we also use Google Analytics cookies to count visits and see which pages help, so we can improve the site.
If you choose “Accept required”, no analytics cookie is set. Google Analytics still receives a cookieless ping with the page address and your IP address. No advertising is used either way. Privacy policy