UL Solutions Inc.

What does UL Solutions own?
UL Solutions owns its laboratory network, certification marks including the UL Mark, and software businesses such as ULTRUS, WERCS, and Prospector. It is a single-brand operating company rather than a holding company with many brands.

Is UL Solutions publicly traded?
Yes. UL Solutions Inc. trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ULS following its April 2024 IPO. It remains a controlled company because the nonprofit UL Standards & Engagement holds about 95 percent of voting power.

Who founded UL Solutions?
William Henry Merrill founded the predecessor Underwriters' Electrical Bureau in Chicago in 1894. The for-profit UL Solutions entity emerged from restructurings in 2012 and 2021 to 2022.

Where is UL Solutions headquartered?
UL Solutions is headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where it also broke ground on a Global Fire Science Center of Excellence in 2025.

How many brands does UL Solutions own?
The company operates primarily under the UL Solutions name and UL Mark, plus a small number of software product brands such as ULTRUS, WERCS, Prospector, and SafeCyber acquired or developed for its Software and Advisory segment.

Who owns UL Solutions?
UL Standards & Engagement, a nonprofit controlled by UL Research Institutes, holds all super-voting Class B shares and approximately 95 percent of voting power. Public Class A shareholders own the remaining economic interest but minimal votes.

What is UL Solutions' revenue?
Fiscal 2025 revenue was $3,053 million, up 6.4 percent year over year, with adjusted EBITDA of $792 million and net income of $345 million.

The organization began in 1894 when William Henry Merrill founded the Underwriters' Electrical Bureau in Chicago to evaluate electrical fire risks for insurance underwriters, work sparked by hazards he assessed at the World's Columbian Exposition. Renamed Underwriters' Laboratories in 1901, it spent the twentieth century building testing programs across electrical products, fire safety, building materials, and consumer goods.

The UL Mark became embedded in North American commerce because regulators, electrical inspectors, and retailers treated it as the default proof of safety. The organization expanded globally in the second half of the century, opening laboratories in Europe and Asia and extending into hazardous locations, marine equipment, and plastics testing.

A structural separation arrived in 2012, when nonprofit Underwriters Laboratories Inc. moved its commercial testing and certification business into a for-profit subsidiary, UL LLC, keeping standards development and research under the nonprofit umbrella. A further restructuring in 2021 and 2022 created today's three-entity family: UL Research Institutes for scientific research, UL Standards & Engagement for standards work, and UL Solutions for commercial certification. UL Inc. legally renamed itself UL Solutions Inc. in June 2022.

On April 12, 2024, UL Solutions listed on the NYSE under ticker ULS after pricing its initial public offering at $20 per share, the first time the certification business was available to public investors. Post-IPO years brought laboratory expansion in batteries, energy storage, data centers, automotive, and fire science, including the 2025 groundbreaking of a Global Fire Science Center of Excellence in Northbrook. Revenue crossed $3 billion for the first time in fiscal 2025, and the company launched AI safety certification services the same year.

UL Solutions sells sustainability services, including environmental product validations and supply chain transparency tools, and reports its own corporate sustainability performance annually with CDP disclosure. The company has been named to sustainability rankings by TIME and Newsweek.

The deeper ethical question for a certification company is independence, which the nonprofit control structure is designed to protect: profits flow substantially to fund UL Research Institutes' safety science rather than shareholders alone. No material environmental violations or greenwashing findings have been reported against the company.

• Forbes Global 2000: Listed among the world's largest public companies following its 2024 IPO.
• TIME and Statista sustainability rankings: Recognized for corporate sustainability performance.
• 650+ accreditations: Technical accreditations from national and international bodies, the industry's core credential.

Counterfeit Mark Enforcement: Counterfeit UL Marks on uncertified products, especially batteries and electronics sold through e-commerce, require ongoing enforcement with customs agencies. This is a brand-protection burden rather than misconduct by the company.

Conflict-of-Interest Scrutiny: The for-profit certification model periodically attracts criticism that manufacturers are paying the entity that judges them. The nonprofit governance structure and accreditation requirements exist partly to answer this critique; no regulator has found the model deficient.