Who Owns Renault?

Renault’s largest shareholder is the French state, which holds a stake of around 15% in Renault Group — a genuine government shareholding in a listed carmaker, unusual in Western Europe. No one owns Renault outright. Companies House records RENAULT U.K. LIMITED (00082932), incorporated 19 December 1904, controlled by Renault Group U.K. Limited — one of the oldest company numbers on this site. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Renault today?

Renault Group of Boulogne-Billancourt is listed on Euronext Paris and owned by its shareholders. It has no parent, but it does have a shareholder no other major carmaker has in the same way: the French Republic.

The British company is RENAULT U.K. LIMITED (00082932), incorporated 19 December 1904 and registered in Rickmansworth. Its person with significant control is Renault Group U.K. Limited (02549609) at 75% or more of shares.

A five-digit company number from 1904 makes this one of the oldest entries covered on this site — older than BP’s 1909 registration. Renault has had a British company for more than 120 years, through two world wars and the nationalisation of its French parent.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

Above the UK companies the chain runs to Renault Group in France, and Companies House stops well before it.

The French structure is defined by the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance, which is not a merger and never has been. The three remain separate listed companies with cross-shareholdings and shared engineering, and the relationship was substantially rebalanced in 2023: Renault reduced its Nissan stake to bring the two closer to parity, transferring shares into a French trust to be sold down over time.

That restructuring is worth understanding, because the alliance is routinely described as though one company owns the others. It does not. Renault does not own Nissan, and Nissan does not own Renault. They own parts of each other, which is a different and much less stable arrangement — as the Carlos Ghosn affair demonstrated.

The UK also holds a piece of Renault’s motorsport history: ALPINE RACING LIMITED (01806337) at Enstone, Oxfordshire, was previously named Renault F1 Limited. The Formula One team’s company is British and predates the Alpine name it now carries.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

No one controls Renault. Reported holdings put the French state at around 15%, Nissan at a reduced stake following the 2023 rebalancing, and employees collectively at a few percent — with the rest held by institutions and the public.

The state’s position is the one that matters politically. France has used it repeatedly: to block or shape transactions, to press for jobs and production to stay in France, and to influence senior appointments. A 15% holding in a widely held company confers far more practical power than the number suggests, and the state has also historically benefited from French double voting rights, which reward shares held for more than two years — the same mechanism this site documents at Kering.

Nobody here would qualify as a person with significant control under UK rules, which begin at 25%. Yet the French government has, in practice, exercised a veto over Renault’s strategic direction more than once.

Official records and evidence

The UK company numbers, the 1904 and 1990 incorporations, the Renault Group U.K. PSC entry and the Alpine Racing previous name are all Companies House records, checkable by number.

Everything about the French parent sits outside the register. Renault Group’s shareholders are disclosed through French market notifications and its annual report, and every percentage is a snapshot from a filing date — particularly unstable here, because the Nissan holding has been actively reduced since 2023.

The register does preserve some genuine history: RENAULT TRUCK COMMERCIALS LIMITED (00290604) dates from 1934 and RENAULT TRUCKS UK LTD (00321658) from 1936 — though the truck business itself has not belonged to Renault since 2001. Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Ownership history and changes

Renault was founded in 1899 by Louis Renault and his brothers.

• 1945 — nationalised by the French state after the war, on grounds of collaboration, and renamed Régie Nationale des Usines Renault. It was wholly state-owned for four decades.
• 1996 — privatised, with the state retaining a substantial minority stake it has held ever since.
• 1999 — takes a controlling stake in Nissan, then close to collapse, forming the Alliance.
• 2001 — sells Renault Trucks to Volvo; the UK truck companies remain on the register under their old names.
• 2018–19 — the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, chairman of both companies, destabilises the Alliance.
• 2023 — the cross-shareholdings are rebalanced toward parity.

So Renault, like BP, spent decades in state hands and emerged as a listed company with the government still on the share register. Unlike BP, the French state never fully sold.

Related companies and brands

Renault Group owns Renault, Dacia, Alpine and Mobilize. Dacia is the Romanian marque Renault acquired in 1999 and turned into the group’s budget brand — the most commercially significant thing Renault has done in Europe this century, and one most buyers do not connect to Renault at all.

Nissan, Infiniti and Mitsubishi are Alliance partners, not subsidiaries. Renault does not own them.

Renault Trucks belongs to Volvo, sold in 2001 — so a Renault-badged lorry and a Renault-badged car have had different owners for a quarter of a century. That is the single most common error about the brand, and the UK register, with its 1930s truck companies still carrying the Renault name, does nothing to dispel it.