L Brands, Inc.

Does L Brands still exist?

No. L Brands, Inc. was dissolved in August 2021. It spun off Victoria's Secret into an independent public company and renamed the remaining entity Bath and Body Works, Inc.

What happened to L Brands?

The company split in two during 2021: Victoria's Secret & Co. became a standalone NYSE company under ticker VSCO, and the parent renamed itself Bath and Body Works, Inc. under ticker BBWI. L Brands as a corporate name ceased to exist.

When was L Brands founded?

Leslie Wexner founded the company in 1963 in Columbus, Ohio, as a single store called The Limited. It operated under that name until becoming Limited Brands and then L Brands before its 2021 dissolution.

Who founded L Brands?

Leslie Wexner founded the company and ran it for 57 years as chairman and CEO until his 2020 retirement. His relationship with Jeffrey Epstein contributed to his departure and the company's eventual breakup.

What brands did L Brands own?

At dissolution, L Brands owned Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works. Historically it had owned The Limited, Express, Abercrombie and Fitch, Lane Bryant, Limited Too, Structure, Henri Bendel, and La Senza, all divested or spun earlier.

What is the relationship between L Brands and Bath and Body Works?

Bath and Body Works, Inc. is the direct corporate successor of L Brands: the same legal entity, renamed after the Victoria's Secret spin-off. Its headquarters remains in Columbus, Ohio.

Leslie Wexner opened The Limited in 1963 in Columbus, Ohio, borrowing $5,000 from an aunt to start a women's clothing store focused on younger shoppers. The concept, offering a tightly edited assortment at moderate prices, grew through the 1960s and 1970s into a national mall chain.

The 1980s transformed the company into a portfolio builder. Wexner acquired Victoria's Secret in 1982 for $1 million when it was a small San Francisco catalog business and built it into America's dominant lingerie brand. Bath and Body Works launched in 1990 as a personal care concept that became a mall fixture. Limited Too, Express, Structure, Abercrombie and Fitch, and Lane Bryant all operated under the company at various points.

The Limited's women's business was sold to Sun Capital in 2007, and the company renamed itself Limited Brands, then L Brands in 2013 as the portfolio contracted. Through the 2010s it effectively operated as a two-brand company: Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works, with the latter's steady growth offsetting the former's prolonged decline.

Wexner's entanglement with Jeffrey Epstein, his longtime financial advisor, became the defining reputational crisis of the company's final years, drawing scrutiny that contributed to his 2020 retirement as CEO after 57 years. The board then split the company: an August 2021 spin-off created independent Victoria's Secret & Co. under ticker VSCO, while the parent renamed itself Bath and Body Works, Inc. under BBWI. L Brands ceased to exist.

In its operating years, L Brands published standard corporate responsibility disclosures covering supply-chain standards for apparel manufacturing, though it never held B Corp certification. Its ethical footprint was defined more by labor and sourcing practices typical of mall retail than by standout sustainability programs.

The successor companies maintain separate responsibility programs. Bath and Body Works and Victoria's Secret & Co. each publish their own disclosures covering materials, supply chain, and community initiatives.

The company's most lasting ethical issue was governance-related rather than environmental: the Epstein relationship and questions it raised about board oversight during Wexner's final years.

The defining controversy was Leslie Wexner's decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner's fortune and held power of attorney over his affairs. Epstein's 2008 conviction and 2019 arrest generated sustained scrutiny of what Wexner knew, culminating in a shareholder derivative suit and Wexner's 2020 retirement. Wexner was never charged and denied knowledge of Epstein's crimes.

Victoria's Secret's marketing drew its own reckoning: the 2018 comments by marketing chief Ed Razek against casting transgender and plus-size models, followed by the cancellation of the fashion show in 2019, crystallized criticism that the brand had fallen behind cultural expectations on inclusivity.

The company also faced standard retail litigation over the years, including wage-and-hour cases and a 2015 data breach, but these were secondary to the Epstein and Victoria's Secret reputational crises that dominated its final chapter.