Who owns Le Routard?
Le Routard is owned by Lagardère (France, EPA: MMB), which has owned the brand since 2025.[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
- Owned since
- Owner HQ
- 🇫🇷 France, Paris
- Origin
- 🇫🇷 France
- Founded
- 1973
- Category
- Media & entertainment › Publishing › Book publishers
- Parent ticker
- EPA: MMB
- Last verified
- · 2 sources
About Le Routard
Le Routard is the French travel guide series, the domestic counterpart to Lonely Planet and the Rough Guides, and one of the two names that make Lagardère Publishing the market leader in French travel guides alongside Hachette Tourisme. Lagardère had long published the guides and acquired the brand itself in October 2025, in a year when the travel guide market as a whole contracted.
Ownership timeline of Le Routard
Where Le Routard 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)
- ELLE (1945)
- 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)
- Little, Brown
- RFM
- Workman Publishing (1968)
Other brands in book publishers, and who owns them
Lagardère has more brands in book publishers on Brandtree than any other owner: 13 of 34.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Bokfabriken | Storytel | 🇸🇪 Sweden |
| Clifford the Big Red Dog | Scholastic | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Macmillan Education | Springer Nature | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| Dummies | Wiley | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Penguin Books | Bertelsmann | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| Kids Can Press | Corus | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| Kadokawa Bunko | Kadokawa | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| HarperCollins | News Corp | 🇺🇸 United States |
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.
🇫🇷 Le Routard 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; Le Routard is not one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Le Routard?
The parent company of Le Routard is Lagardère, a publicly listed company headquartered in France.
Is Le Routard French?
Yes. Le Routard originated in France in 1973 and its owner, Lagardère, is also headquartered in France.
Since when has Lagardère owned Le Routard?
Lagardère has owned Le Routard since 2025.
Is Le Routard still owned by Lagardère?
Yes. As of 28 September 2026, Le Routard 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] Routard.com : L’histoire du Guide du Routard — Hachette Tourisme, Official document; retrieved 28 September 2026.
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