Who Owns Polestar?

Polestar is a Geely company. Its parent is Polestar Automotive Holding UK PLC (13624182) — a UK-registered company listed on Nasdaq — and Companies House records Li Shufu, Geely’s founder, as its person with significant control at 75% or more. Geely entities together hold roughly 80%, with Volvo Cars retaining about 18% after cutting its stake from 48% in 2024. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns the Polestar brand?

Polestar is a Swedish electric performance car brand whose listed parent is registered in the UK: Polestar Automotive Holding UK PLC, company number 13624182, incorporated 15 September 2021 and registered in Bristol. It trades on Nasdaq under PSNY.

That combination is unusual and worth noting — a Swedish brand, a UK-registered parent, a US listing, and Chinese ultimate control.

Parent company and ultimate owner

Companies House records Shufu Li — Geely’s founder, correspondence address at Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in Hangzhou — as holding 75% or more of shares and voting rights with the right to appoint and remove directors, notified on the company’s incorporation date.

Reported holdings behind that:

• PSD Investment, Li Shufu’s personal holding company — at least 39%
• Geely Holdings — around 24%
• Volvo Cars — around 18%, reduced from 48% in early 2024
• Free float — roughly 18%

Geely’s various vehicles account for about 80% in aggregate. Volvo Cars is itself Geely-controlled, so the concentration is greater than the separate line items suggest.

Brand owner vs operating company

Polestar began as Volvo’s performance division and was spun out as a separate marque. It remains closely tied to Volvo in engineering, manufacturing and after-sales, which is why the two are often assumed to be one company.

They are not. Volvo Cars is a shareholder in Polestar and a commercial partner, and its stake has been falling. This site’s Volvo profile records Li Shufu as PSC of Volvo Car UK Limited; here he is PSC of Polestar’s parent. The two brands share an ultimate controller rather than owning each other.

When the ownership changed

Polestar was an independent Swedish tuning firm before Volvo acquired it in 2015. Geely and Volvo established it as a standalone electric brand in 2017, and the UK holding company was incorporated in September 2021 ahead of the Nasdaq listing, completed in 2022 through a SPAC merger.

The material recent change is Volvo Cars cutting its holding from around 48% to about 18% in early 2024, with Geely entities taking up the balance — a shift from joint Volvo–Geely ownership to direct Geely control.

The Companies House record captures a useful before-and-after. Li Shufu’s PSC entry dates from incorporation in September 2021, and from 2 August 2022 the company became exempt from PSC reporting because its voting shares trade on a listed market. So the register preserves the pre-flotation position and then stops updating — a snapshot frozen at listing.

Related brands in the same group

Geely’s automotive holdings include Volvo Cars, Lotus, Proton, LEVC — which builds the London black cab — and a substantial stake in Mercedes-Benz Group, plus around 13% of Aston Martin.

Those are the group’s holdings rather than Polestar’s. Polestar and Lotus share an ultimate owner and are separate companies, competing in overlapping segments.

Sources and verification

The UK company details and the Li Shufu PSC entry come from the Companies House register for company 13624182, including the exemption recorded from 2 August 2022.

The percentage splits between PSD Investment, Geely Holdings, Volvo Cars and the free float are reported figures rather than register entries — the PSC register works in bands and stopped updating at listing. The authoritative current source is Polestar’s own investor disclosures and Nasdaq filings. Companies House does not verify most filed information.