Who Owns Mars?

Mars is owned by the Mars family — one of the largest private companies in the world, never listed and never sold. Until recently the UK register said nothing about it. That changed on 6 June 2025, when a “no registrable person” statement running since 2016 was withdrawn and Jacqueline Badger Mars, granddaughter of the founder, was named directly on the register. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Mars today?

Mars, Incorporated is a private American company based in Virginia. It has no listed shares, publishes no annual report in the way a public company does, and has been owned by the same family since 1911.

The British confectionery company is MARS WRIGLEY CONFECTIONERY UK LIMITED (06649982), incorporated 18 July 2008 and previously named Mars Chocolate UK Limited, based in Slough.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

The UK chain runs through three companies and ends at a person:

1. Mars Wrigley Confectionery UK Limited (06649982)
2. Food Manufacturers (G.B. Company) (01191790) — 75%+, notified 15 February 2023
3. Effem Holdings Limited (03689160) — 75%+, notified 21 August 2017
4. Jacqueline Badger Mars — ownership of voting rights, more than 25% but not more than 50%, notified 6 June 2025

Two of those names are worth decoding. Effem is “F&M” spelled out — Forrest Mars, the founder’s son, used it across the group for decades. And the entry Effem Holdings replaced in 2017 was a company called simply Hoops (02339397). Corporate groups this old accumulate names that mean nothing to outsiders and everything internally.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

Jacqueline Badger Mars, American, born October 1939, is the only individual named. She is a granddaughter of Frank C. Mars, who founded the business.

Her recorded band — more than 25% but not more than 50% of the voting rights — indicates she does not control the company alone. Ownership is reported to be split roughly equally between three branches of the family, descended from Forrest Mars Sr.’s children, and the register’s band is consistent with that.

No outside investor holds a stake. Mars has never taken private equity money, never floated, and is frequently described as one of the largest companies in the world with no public shareholders at all.

Official records and evidence

The change on 6 June 2025 is the striking thing, and it is worth stating precisely.

From 16 October 2016 Effem Holdings filed a statement that it knew of no registrable person or registrable relevant legal entity. That statement stood for nearly nine years. On 6 June 2025 it was withdrawn and Jacqueline Badger Mars was entered in its place.

So for most of the PSC regime’s existence, Companies House recorded no owner for Mars’s British holding company — and now it records one by name. Anyone who checked before mid-2025 and concluded the register was a dead end would have been right at the time and wrong now. It is a good argument for rechecking a register rather than trusting a previous answer.

Above the UK companies, Mars, Incorporated is private and American, so its full ownership is not established by any filing available here.

Ownership history and changes

Frank C. Mars began making sweets in Tacoma, Washington in 1911. His son Forrest Mars Sr. built the international business, founding the British operation at Slough in 1932 — which is where the Mars bar was created, and why the company’s UK roots are deeper than its American branding suggests.

The company has never changed hands. Its ownership events have all been acquisitions: Wrigley in 2008 for a reported $23bn, backed partly by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway; VCA and other veterinary businesses; and the agreed purchase of Kellanova, the Pringles and Kellogg’s snacks business, announced in 2024.

Those have made Mars steadily larger without diluting the family, because they were paid for with debt and cash rather than shares.

Related companies and brands

Mars owns Mars, Snickers, Twix, Bounty, Galaxy, Maltesers, M&M’s, Skittles, Starburst, Extra and Orbit — and, larger than all of it, a pet care business including Pedigree, Whiskas, Royal Canin and the Banfield and VCA veterinary chains. Pet care, not confectionery, is Mars’s biggest division.

Two corrections. Mars does not own Cadbury — that is Mondelez, as this site’s Cadbury page sets out. And the Mars bar sold in some markets differs from the British one; the brand is the family’s, the recipe is not universal.