Iconic British Brands Now Foreign-Owned

The chocolate that defines British confectionery is owned by a Chicago company. The luxury car that carries heads of state is built in England but owned in Munich. The sauce in British fry-ups for over a century is made in the Netherlands for an American conglomerate.

No major economy has sold off as many household names as Britain. We traced the current owners of the country's most iconic brands, and the list of foreign parents is long. Cadbury, Rolls-Royce cars, Jaguar, Land Rover, Bentley, Harrods: all foreign-owned today.

This post maps who bought what, when, and what still remains British. For the mirror image, see our piece on Indian brands going global, where the acquiring side of this story often lives.

Cadbury: The $19.5 Billion Hostile Takeover

Cadbury was founded in Birmingham in 1824 and grew into the definitive British chocolate brand. Dairy Milk, Creme Eggs, Roses: the portfolio was a national institution.

In January 2010, Kraft Foods completed a hostile takeover of Cadbury plc valued at about $19.5 billion. Kraft had publicly promised to keep Cadbury's Somerdale plant near Bristol open. Days after winning control, it announced the plant would close anyway. About 400 jobs were lost.

The backlash was serious. British lawmakers called Kraft's reversal "irresponsible and unwise." The Takeover Panel issued a rare public censure of Kraft in May 2010 for misleading statements. The episode changed UK takeover politics and still gets cited every time a foreign buyer circles a British company.

Kraft split itself in two in 2012. Cadbury landed with Mondelez International (NASDAQ: MDLZ), the snack business headquartered in Chicago. So Cadbury is American-owned today, made partly in Birmingham, and the Somerdale closure remains shorthand for broken takeover promises.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars: German Since 1998

This one confuses everyone, so let us be precise. There are two Rolls-Royces.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the luxury car maker, is owned by BMW Group (German). When Vickers sold the car business in 1998, the rights got tangled: Volkswagen bought the Crewe factory and the Bentley name, while BMW secured rights to the Rolls-Royce name and grille via a licensing deal with the aero engine company. BMW built a new plant at Goodwood, which opened in 2003, and has built every Rolls-Royce car there since.

Rolls-Royce Holdings plc, the aircraft engine maker, is a completely separate company. It is British, listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: RR), and owns the trademark rights it licenses to BMW for cars. Two entities share the name. One is German. One is not.

Jaguar Land Rover: Indian Since 2008

Ford paid about $2.5 billion for Jaguar in 1989 and about $2.7 billion for Land Rover in 2000. It combined them, lost money on the pair for years, then sold both to Tata Motors in 2008 for $2.3 billion. Ford effectively took a multibillion-dollar loss.

Under Tata, Jaguar and Land Rover turned profitable and became the engine of Tata Motors' global ambitions. JLR is headquartered in Coventry, employs tens of thousands in the UK, and is the country's biggest carmaker by volume. The ownership is Indian: Tata Motors trades on the NSE, and its ultimate parent Tata Sons is controlled by philanthropic trusts holding about 66 percent of its equity.

JLR had a rough 2025, when a major cyberattack forced a production shutdown lasting weeks across its UK plants. It remains Tata-owned and British-built.

Bentley: German Since 1998

Bentley went to Volkswagen Group in the same 1998 transaction that split Rolls-Royce. VW paid about £430 million for Bentley Motors, the Crewe works, and the brand.

Bentley now sits in the same group as Audi, Porsche, and Skoda. The cars are still designed and built in Crewe. The profits flow to Wolfsburg. It is one of the more successful foreign acquisitions of a British marque: VW invested heavily and Bentley volumes multiplied.

HP Sauce: Made in the Netherlands Now

HP Sauce was brewed in Aston, Birmingham for over a century, named for the Houses of Parliament on its label. Danone owned it in the early 2000s, then sold the HP Foods business to Heinz in 2005 for about £470 million.

Heinz moved production from Birmingham to Elst in the Netherlands in 2007. The merger of Kraft and Heinz in 2015 put HP inside Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ: KHC), the American food giant. Kraft Heinz announced in September 2025 that it plans to split into two companies, so HP's exact corporate home may shift again, but it will not be British.

The Rest of the Sell-Off

The list extends well beyond food and cars.

• P&O, the ports and ferry operator dating to 1837, went to Dubai's DP World in 2006 for about £3.3 billion.
• [Asda](/brands/asda) was bought from Walmart in 2021 by the Issa brothers and private equity firm TDR Capital for £6.8 billion: British owners, but leveraged private equity rather than a strategic grocer.
• British Energy went to France's EDF in 2009 for £12.5 billion. Among the big energy utilities, only Centrica and SSE remain in British hands.
• [ScottishPower](/brands/scottish-power) went to Spain's Iberdrola in 2007.
• O2 went to Spain's Telefonica in 2005 for £17.7 billion, and now sits inside the Virgin Media O2 joint venture with Liberty Global.
• Selfridges was sold in 2021 to Thailand's Central Group and Austria's Signa for about £4 billion; after Signa collapsed, Central took full control.
• [Harrods](/brands/harrods) has belonged to Qatar Investment Authority since 2010, bought for about £1.5 billion.

The Department Store Exodus

The two most famous retail addresses in London are both foreign-owned, and their paths show different versions of the same exit.

Mohamed Al-Fayed sold Harrods to Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the Qatar Investment Authority, in May 2010 for a reported £1.5 billion. Al-Fayed had owned it since 1985. Sixteen years into Qatari ownership, the Knightsbridge store remains a trophy asset in a sovereign portfolio that also holds Paris Saint-Germain and most of The Shard.

Selfridges took a messier route. The Weston family, the same Canadian dynasty that controls Loblaw, sold the chain in 2021 to a joint venture between Thailand's Central Group and Austria's Signa Holding for about £4 billion. When Signa collapsed into insolvency in late 2023, Central moved to full control. Britain's second-most-famous department store is now wholly Thai-owned.

Why Britain Sells

The structural reasons are worth stating plainly. London-listed companies have global shareholder registers, so a takeover needs money, not political permission. The Takeover Code prioritizes shareholders' right to decide, which makes defensive structures harder than in France or Germany. And Britain has rarely legislated national ownership of consumer brands the way Australia legislated Qantas.

The Cadbury affair did tighten things. Kraft's Somerdale reversal pushed the Takeover Panel to strengthen rules on post-offer commitments, so bidders now have to honor public promises or explain themselves formally. But the system still lets shareholders sell, and shareholders keep selling.

What Is Still British

The sell-off has limits. The brands that stayed domestic share a pattern: they are in defense, aerospace, finance, or grocery, where UK institutional ownership and strategic sensitivities run deep.

Source: company filings and WhoBrands research, October 2026.

Still British: Rolls-Royce Holdings (aerospace), BAE Systems, Tesco, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury's, Barclays, HSBC, AstraZeneca, BP, and Unilever. Notice the split: defense, aerospace, banking, and big grocery stayed home. Luxury, chocolate, cars, ports, and department stores went abroad.

What This Means for Brand Ownership

Britain's brand sell-off is the most dramatic of any major economy we track. Chocolate went to America, luxury cars to Germany and India, ports to the Emirates, department stores to Qatar and Thailand.

The Cadbury takeover remains the pivot point. It triggered lasting debate about foreign takeovers, takeover panel powers, and whether Britain should protect strategic brands the way Canada and Australia protect airlines. The answer, so far, has mostly been no. Britain sells.

If you want to see which UK brands remain British and which do not, our database tracks the ownership of thousands of brands. Related reading: Canadian brands and who owns them today and brands that changed hands five-plus times.

FAQ

Who owns Cadbury now?

Mondelez International (NASDAQ: MDLZ), the American snack company formed when Kraft split in 2012. Kraft bought Cadbury in a $19.5 billion hostile takeover in January 2010 and closed the Somerdale plant despite promising to keep it open.

Are Rolls-Royce cars British or German?

German-owned, British-built. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has been controlled by BMW Group since 1998, with production at Goodwood since 2003. Rolls-Royce Holdings, the separate aerospace company, remains British and listed on the LSE (RR).

Who owns Jaguar Land Rover?

Tata Motors of India, which bought JLR from Ford in 2008 for $2.3 billion. Ford had paid more than $5 billion combined for the two brands, so the sale represented a major loss. JLR remains headquartered in Coventry.

Is HP Sauce still made in Britain?

No. Heinz moved production from Birmingham to Elst in the Netherlands in 2007, two years after acquiring the brand. HP Sauce is now owned by Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ: KHC).

Explore Related Brands

• Cadbury - Chocolate brand owned by Mondelez International since 2012
• Rolls-Royce - Luxury cars owned by BMW since 1998
• Jaguar - British marque owned by Tata Motors since 2008
• Land Rover - SUV brand sold by Ford to Tata in 2008
• Bentley - Crewe-built luxury cars under Volkswagen Group
• Harrods - Knightsbridge store owned by Qatar Investment Authority

Browse all food and beverage brands →

Sources

1. UK Government: "Government Response to the Takeover of Cadbury by Kraft" (CM 7915) -- https://www.gov.uk/ 2. BBC News: "Kraft criticised over Cadbury factory pledge" -- https://www.bbc.com/news/ 3. Reuters: "British MPs slam Kraft over Cadbury plant closure" -- https://www.reuters.com/ 4. BMW Group and Jaguar Land Rover annual reports -- https://www.bmwgroup.com/ 5. Wikipedia: Cadbury, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Jaguar Land Rover -- https://en.wikipedia.org/ 6. BBC News: "What makes a business British?" -- https://www.bbc.com/news/business

All brand ownership data verified through WhoBrands.com research methodology. Last updated: October 2026.

About WhoBrands

WhoBrands.com provides accurate, comprehensive brand ownership information through extensive research of SEC filings, corporate press releases, and official company documents. Our database covers thousands of brands across dozens of industries. Learn about our methodology.