Who Owns Mercedes?

Mercedes has no controlling owner. Mercedes-Benz Group AG is listed in Frankfurt, and its largest shareholders are two Chinese carmakers — BAIC and Geely — each holding around 10%, with the Kuwait Investment Authority near 5%. None controls the company. Companies House records the British arm under Mercedes-Benz Holdings UK Limited, and preserves the moment the group stopped being Daimler: that entry ceased on 1 February 2022. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Mercedes today?

Mercedes-Benz Group AG of Stuttgart owns the marque, and it is owned by its shareholders. There is no family, no state and no parent above it.

The British company is MERCEDES-BENZ UK LIMITED (02448457), incorporated 1 December 1989 and registered in Milton Keynes. Its person with significant control is Mercedes-Benz Holdings UK Limited (01140745, incorporated 1973) at 75% or more of shares.

Note the band covers shares only — not voting rights, and not the right to appoint directors, all of which the previous entry did record. PSC entries list precisely the conditions a controller meets, and the differences between them are deliberate rather than clerical.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

Above the UK holding company the chain runs to Stuttgart, and the register stops well before it.

The ceased entry is the interesting one. Daimler UK Limited was the registered controller until 1 February 2022, holding under four separate conditions at once — 75%+ of shares, 75%+ of votes, the right to appoint directors, and significant influence or control.

That date marks the end of Daimler. In early 2022 the group spun off Daimler Truck as a separately listed company and renamed the remaining car business Mercedes-Benz Group AG. The name Daimler, which had been on the company since the nineteenth century, went with the trucks.

So a cessation on the UK register that looks like a change of owner is nothing of the kind. It is a corporate rename and demerger in Germany, recorded here as one entity replacing another. This is the same reading error the site’s Hotel Chocolat and Jaguar profiles warn about, in a different form.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

Mercedes-Benz Group AG’s largest shareholders are, on reported figures:

• BAIC Group — around 10%, Chinese state-owned
• Geely, through Li Shufu — around 10%
• Kuwait Investment Authority — around 5%, a sovereign wealth fund and a shareholder since the 1970s

Two Chinese carmakers together hold roughly a fifth of Mercedes-Benz. That is the largest bloc on the register and it is nowhere near control: neither has a board majority, the two are commercial rivals in China rather than partners, and Mercedes remains a German company run from Stuttgart.

Percentages here drift for a specific reason worth understanding. Mercedes has been buying back and cancelling its own shares, which mechanically raises every remaining holder’s percentage without anyone buying anything. A shareholder can appear to be building a stake while doing nothing at all.

Nobody would qualify as a person with significant control under UK rules, which start at 25%.

Official records and evidence

The UK company numbers, incorporation dates, the Mercedes-Benz Holdings UK entry and the Daimler UK cessation on 1 February 2022 are all Companies House records and checkable by number.

Everything about the German parent sits outside the UK register. Mercedes-Benz Group AG reports to the Frankfurt exchange, and its major shareholdings are disclosed through German voting-rights notifications rather than through Companies House. Every percentage is a snapshot from a notification date.

Companies House holds 46 companies matching “Mercedes-Benz”, most of them genuine group subsidiaries in Milton Keynes. Two are registered in Brackley, which is a different business entirely — see below. Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Ownership history and changes

The company traces to Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, whose separate firms merged in 1926 to form Daimler-Benz.

• 1998 — merges with Chrysler to form DaimlerChrysler, presented as a merger of equals and generally judged a failure.
• 2007 — Chrysler is sold; the company becomes Daimler AG.
• 2010 — Kuwait‘s long-standing stake is joined by new investors; BAIC and later Geely build holdings through the 2010s.
• 1 February 2022 — Daimler Truck is demerged and the car company is renamed Mercedes-Benz Group AG. The UK register records Daimler UK Limited ceasing on this date.

Chrysler, having been sold by Daimler in 2007, eventually ended up inside Stellantis — so the company Mercedes once owned now sits alongside Fiat, Peugeot and Vauxhall, covered elsewhere on this site.

Related companies and brands

The group owns Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Maybach and smart — the last now a joint venture with Geely, which is also one of the group’s largest shareholders. Geely therefore appears twice in Mercedes’ affairs, as investor and as partner, without controlling either.

Daimler Truck is no longer in the group. Nor is Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep.

One entry on the register deserves separating out. MERCEDES-BENZ GRAND PRIX LTD (00787446) is registered in Brackley and was incorporated on 9 January 1964 — decades before Mercedes returned to Formula One. That company is the Formula One team, and its 1964 registration is the surviving thread of the Northamptonshire racing operation that passed through several owners before Mercedes acquired it. The car company is 02448457 in Milton Keynes; the racing team is a separate company with a much older number.