Heartland A/S

What does Heartland own?

Heartland owns fashion group Bestseller outright, holds 75 percent of the Topshop/Topman joint venture, is the largest shareholder in ASOS at roughly 27 percent, and holds stakes in Zalando, Klarna, real estate, and conservation assets.

Is Heartland publicly traded?

No. Heartland A/S is a private holding company owned by the Holch Povlsen family. None of its shares trade publicly, though it holds stakes in listed companies such as ASOS.

Who founded Heartland?

Anders Holch Povlsen formed Heartland in 2016 to consolidate his family's holdings. The family's business origins trace to 1975, when his parents Troels and Merete founded what became Bestseller in Ringkobing, Denmark.

Where is Heartland headquartered?

The company is headquartered in Brande, a small town in the Jutland region of Denmark that has been the home of the Povlsen family's businesses since Bestseller's founding.

How many brands does Heartland own?

Through wholly owned Bestseller it controls more than a dozen fashion brands, plus 75 percent of Topshop and Topman through the joint venture. Its minority stakes in ASOS and Zalando do not constitute brand ownership.

Who owns Heartland?

The Holch Povlsen family owns Heartland entirely, with Anders Holch Povlsen as principal owner. He is consistently ranked as Denmark's richest person and, through family landholdings, the largest private landowner in Britain.

Anders Holch Povlsen's parents, Troels Holch Povlsen and Merete Bech Povlsen, opened a women's clothing store in Ringkobing, Denmark, in 1975, growing it into the international fashion group Bestseller. Anders joined the company and eventually took over, building the family's wealth through brand expansion and e-commerce stakes.

The Povlsens were early believers in online fashion. They accumulated stakes in ASOS and Zalando years before either became a mainstream investment case, and those positions ultimately outweighed the value of the core clothing business itself.

Heartland was formed in 2016 to consolidate the family's holdings under a single structured entity headquartered in Brande, the small Jutland town where Bestseller has always been based. The reorganization separated operating fashion businesses from investments and gave the family a formal vehicle for new deals.

Through Heartland, the family expanded beyond fashion into payments company Klarna, real estate, hospitality, and one of Europe's largest private rewilding programs across its Scottish estates. In 2019 the family suffered a widely reported tragedy when three of the Povlsen children were killed in the Sri Lanka Easter bombings; Anders and Anne Holch Povlsen subsequently focused public commitments on conservation and community.

The most significant recent transaction came in September 2024, when Heartland paid ASOS 135 million pounds for a 75 percent stake in a joint venture owning the Topshop and Topman brands. ASOS retained 25 percent plus design and distribution roles, while Heartland took majority control of two of Britain's best-known high-street names and began rebuilding them as standalone brands.

Heartland attracts scrutiny less for corporate conduct than for its scale. Anders Holch Povlsen's landholdings in Scotland, assembled for rewilding through separate family entities, have drawn periodic political debate over concentrated private land ownership, though supporters point to documented ecological restoration.

The 2024 Topshop transaction drew some criticism from UK labor advocates over the brand's offshore-linked ownership and the limited guarantees around future employment, though no regulatory action resulted. The family's businesses otherwise maintain a low controversy profile.