Who Owns Holland and Barrett?

Holland & Barrett is owned by LetterOne, the Luxembourg investment group founded by the Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, which bought it in 2017. Both were sanctioned after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; they stood down from LetterOne’s board and their shareholdings were frozen — frozen is not divested. Companies House traces the British chain and stops well short of Luxembourg. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Holland and Barrett today?

The trading company is HOLLAND & BARRETT LIMITED (00390308), incorporated 10 October 1944 and registered at Samuel Ryder House, Nuneaton.

The chain recorded at Companies House runs upward through a series of group companies at the same address:

1. Holland & Barrett Holdings Limited (03262074) — held at 75%+ by
2. Holland & Barrett Group Limited (03086306) — held at 75%+ by
3. Holland & Barrett International Limited (04515115), previously named Holland & Barrett Europe Limited

Above that the register stops. The owner is LetterOne Holdings, registered in Luxembourg, and it is named on no British filing.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

LetterOne is an investment vehicle formed in 2013 from the proceeds of the sale of the Russian oil company TNK-BP. Its founders — Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and their partners — hold the bulk of it, with Fridman and Aven reported at just under half between them.

It bought Holland & Barrett in 2017 for a reported £1.8bn from the American group NBTY, in what was then one of the largest acquisitions of a British retailer by a Russian-founded investor.

The Luxembourg registration matters practically. It places the ultimate parent outside both the UK’s PSC regime and any register a British reader can search — so the chain of five UK companies documented above establishes the structure exhaustively and the ownership not at all.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

This is where the page requires care, because the position is genuinely unresolved rather than simply complicated.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Fridman and Aven were sanctioned by the EU and the UK. Both stood down from LetterOne’s board, and their shareholdings were frozen: they could not vote, could not sell and could not receive dividends. LetterOne itself was not sanctioned, and Holland & Barrett continued trading normally.

The distinction is the substance of the page. A frozen shareholding is still owned. Sanctions suspend the rights attaching to shares; they do not transfer them. Fridman remained a shareholder throughout, without being able to exercise the rights of one.

The position has since diverged between jurisdictions: EU sanctions on Fridman were annulled in 2024, while UK sanctions remained in force, and he began legal proceedings against the UK government in November 2025. So the same holding can be frozen under one country’s law and not another’s, which no ownership register anywhere reflects.

This site’s TUI profile records a related but different case: there, a sanctioned shareholder’s stake was transferred within his family. Here it was frozen in place. Neither situation is visible on a companies register, and the two look identical in a filing.

Official records and evidence

Every company number, incorporation date and PSC entry above comes from Companies House and can be checked directly. The register documents a five-company British chain with unusual completeness — and names no owner.

Three limits, and they are the reason this page is careful. LetterOne is Luxembourg-registered, outside the PSC regime and outside any freely searchable register. The sanctions position is held by the UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation and the EU’s own lists, not by Companies House — those are the authoritative sources and they should be checked directly for the current position. And the ownership of LetterOne itself rests on reporting and the firm’s own statements.

The 1944 incorporation, by contrast, is solid: Holland & Barrett has been a registered British company for over eighty years, whoever has owned it. Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Ownership history and changes

The business began in 1870 in Bishop’s Stortford, when Major William Holland and Alfred Slapps Barrett bought a grocery shop. It moved into health foods in the twentieth century.

• 1944 — Holland & Barrett Limited incorporated on 10 October.
• 1970s–1990s — passes through several owners, including Lloyds Chemists and then the American vitamins group NBTY.
• 2010 — NBTY is bought by the private equity firm Carlyle.
• 2017 — LetterOne buys Holland & Barrett for a reported £1.8bn.
• 2022 — Fridman and Aven are sanctioned; their LetterOne shareholdings are frozen.
• 2024–2025 — EU sanctions on Fridman are annulled; UK sanctions remain, and are challenged.

A high street health food chain founded in a Hertfordshire market town in 1870 is now owned from Luxembourg by a vehicle built on Russian oil money. That trajectory is unusual even by the standards of this site.

Related companies and brands

The group owns Holland & Barrett, Dolphin Fitness and stores across Europe, and it has expanded through the Benelux and Ireland.

LetterOne’s wider portfolio includes telecoms, energy and technology holdings, and it held a substantial stake in the Spanish supermarket group DIA. Those companies share an investor with Holland & Barrett, not an owner — the distinction this site draws throughout.

Holland & Barrett is not connected to Boots, Superdrug or Grape Tree, all separately owned. Boots’ ownership, and the Blazing Star acquisition vehicle in its own register, is covered elsewhere on this site.