Who Owns Waitrose?

Waitrose is owned by its staff. It belongs to the John Lewis Partnership, and Companies House records the owner as John Lewis Partnership Trust Limited — a trust that holds the business on behalf of the 60,000-odd employees, who are Partners rather than shareholders. Nobody can buy shares in it, because none are sold. Waitrose’s own company was incorporated in 1908. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Waitrose today?

Waitrose has its own company: WAITROSE LIMITED (00099405), incorporated 3 September 1908 — the year Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor opened their first shop, and two decades before John Lewis bought the business.

Its person with significant control is John Lewis plc (00233462), holding 75% or more of shares and voting rights, notified 1 April 2017.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

The chain is four companies deep and every one of them is on the register:

1. Waitrose Limited (00099405)
2. John Lewis plc (00233462, incorporated 20 September 1928)
3. John Lewis Partnership plc (00238937, incorporated 23 April 1929)
4. John Lewis Partnership Trust Limited (00481406, incorporated 24 April 1950) — 75% or more of shares and voting rights

The trust is where it stops, and that is the point. It holds the Partnership in trust for the Partners — the people who work there. They are beneficiaries, not shareholders: they cannot sell their interest, cannot take it with them when they leave, and receive their share of the profits as an annual bonus rather than a dividend.

So the honest answer to who owns Waitrose is: a trust, on behalf of the staff. It is the same shape as Real Madrid’s members or the BBC’s charter — ownership deliberately structured so that no one can cash it in.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

There are none, and none can exist. The Partnership’s constitution vests ownership in the trust and governance in a Partnership Council, a Partnership Board and a chairman, with elected Partner representatives on the Council.

No individual holds a controlling interest. No outside investor holds any interest. The business has no listed shares and cannot be subject to a takeover in the ordinary sense — a sale would require dismantling the trust, which has been debated publicly and not done.

What the Partnership does have is bondholders and lenders. It has issued listed bonds, so investors can lend to it and be repaid with interest. Lending is not owning, and a bondholder has no say in how the business is run.

Official records and evidence

Companies House establishes the whole chain here, which is unusual — most of the ownership questions on this site end in an exemption, a foreign parent or a statement that nobody is registrable. Waitrose’s ends in a named trust company that itself files accounts.

The Partnership also publishes an annual report and its constitution, both of which set out the trust arrangement in more detail than any filing needs to.

One caution: the trust company’s name appears on the register as the PSC, but the beneficiaries — the Partners — are not named individually and could not be, since the population changes with every hiring and leaving.

Ownership history and changes

Waitrose was founded in 1904 and its company incorporated in 1908. John Lewis bought it in 1937, and it has been part of the Partnership ever since.

The Partnership itself was created by John Spedan Lewis, who inherited the business and gave it away: he signed the first trust settlement in 1929 and the second, irrevocable one in 1950 — which is why John Lewis Partnership Trust Limited was incorporated in April of that year. He transferred ownership to the staff rather than selling or bequeathing it.

There has been no change of ownership since. The recent history is of pressure rather than transfer: shop closures, the ending of the guaranteed annual bonus in some years, and public discussion of whether outside investment might be needed — which would require changing a structure designed to make that hard.

Related companies and brands

The Partnership owns Waitrose, John Lewis, and a build-to-rent housing business incorporated in 2022, along with its financial services arrangements.

Two clarifications. Waitrose supplied Ocado for two decades and no longer does — that relationship ended in 2020 when Ocado’s retail arm became a joint venture with Marks & Spencer, as this site’s Ocado page sets out. Supplying a retailer was never ownership of it. And several companies on the register carry the Waitrose name alongside others — Welcome Break Waitrose, Starbucks Coffee Waitrose — which belong to the motorway services operator, not to the Partnership.