Who Owns Rolls-Royce?

There are two Rolls-Royces, with different owners. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars — the cars — belongs to BMW: Companies House records BMW (UK) Holdings Limited as its controller. Rolls-Royce Holdings plc — the aero engines and power systems — is a separate company listed on the London Stock Exchange with no controlling owner. They split in 1998 and have been unconnected since. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns the Rolls Royce brand?

Almost every confusion about Rolls-Royce comes from treating one name as one company. It is two.

The car company is Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited (03522604), incorporated on 5 March 1998 and registered in Farnborough. Its person with significant control is BMW (UK) Holdings Limited (01213133), holding 75% or more of shares and voting rights, notified 4 December 2017.

The engine company is Rolls-Royce Holdings plc, listed on the London Stock Exchange. It makes aero engines, defence and power systems, and has no relationship to the cars beyond a shared name and a licensing arrangement.

Parent company and ultimate owner

For the cars, the chain runs to BMW AG in Munich, through BMW (UK) Holdings. BMW is a listed German company in which the Quandt family holds a large stake — so Rolls-Royce cars are ultimately German-owned and family-influenced.

For the engines, there is no ultimate owner. Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is widely held by institutional investors with no controlling shareholder, in the same position as Tesco or Aston Martin elsewhere on this site. As a listed company it is exempt from PSC reporting, so Companies House holds no ownership record for it.

Brand owner vs operating company

The register preserves the split in an unusually neat way. Bentley Motors Limited (00992897, incorporated 1970) carries the previous names Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited and Rolls-Royce & Bentley Motor Cars Limited.

That is the 1998 division on the public record: the historic company — the factory at Crewe, the people, the production — became Bentley under Volkswagen, while a newly incorporated company took the Rolls-Royce name for BMW. The old Rolls-Royce car company did not move to BMW; BMW got the name and built a new operation at Goodwood.

So the entity that made Rolls-Royce cars until 1998 now makes Bentleys, and the entity making Rolls-Royce cars today was incorporated in 1998. Both statements sound wrong and both are correct.

When the ownership changed

Rolls-Royce Limited was nationalised in 1971 after the company’s collapse, and the car business was separated and privatised as Rolls-Royce Motors in 1973. Vickers acquired it in 1980 and put it up for sale in 1998.

Volkswagen won the auction, buying the Crewe factory, the Spirit of Ecstasy and the Bentley marque. But the Rolls-Royce name and logo were not Vickers’ to sell — they belonged to the aero engine company, which licensed them to BMW. VW ended up with the factory and no right to the name; BMW with the name and no factory.

The two settled it: VW built Rolls-Royces at Crewe until the end of 2002, and from January 2003 BMW began production at Goodwood. The register’s Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited dates from that 1998 arrangement, and the ceased PSC entry for APD Industries plc, ending 4 December 2017, reflects a later internal reorganisation rather than any change in ownership.

Related brands in the same group

BMW owns Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Mini and BMW Motorrad. Volkswagen owns Bentley, along with Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Škoda and SEAT.

Rolls-Royce Holdings plc has no consumer brands and is not connected to either group. Buying shares in “Rolls-Royce” on the stock market buys aero engines, not cars — a distinction worth being certain about before investing.

Sources and verification

The car company details, the BMW (UK) Holdings PSC entry and the Bentley previous names all come from the Companies House register and can be checked by company number.

Rolls-Royce Holdings plc’s ownership is not on the register, since listed companies are PSC-exempt; its shareholders are disclosed through the market and its annual report. The 1998 sale account is drawn from published history rather than filings. Companies House does not verify most filed information.