The Lauder family still controls more than 80% of the voting power in Estée Lauder Companies.

Explore the brands owned by Estée Lauder Companies

While Estée Lauder remains the flagship brand and namesake of the cosmetic conglomerate, the company owns more than 20 premier brands. Some of the brands—like Clinique and Origin—were created in-house, but others—like Tom Ford and Jo Malone—are a result of the company's acquisition strategy, which often targets companies with high-end retail products.

Much of Estée Lauder's success stemmed from her laser focus on serving her target market: wealthy women who saw beauty as an investment.

Estée Lauder's son, Leonard Lauder, transformed Estée Lauder into a global powerhouse

Leonard Lauder became president of Estée Lauder Companies in 1972 and is credited with much of the brand's expansion. Under his leadership, the company launched new lines like Aramis and acquired luxury brands to bolster its position in the luxury beauty market.

Read Time Magazine's profile of Estée Lauder—the only woman named to a list of the most influential business leaders of the 20th century

Time Magazine's 1998 profile of Estée Lauder credited much of Lauder's global success to her incredible work ethic and her dedication to creating the highest-quality products, even if those products weren't trendy.

Explore old photos of Estée Lauder's life

Despite her humble upbringing, Estée Lauder's love of beauty and glamour helped propel her social climb. Lauder became friends with many elites over the course of her life—including the late Princess Diana—owned homes in the Hamptons and the South of France, and turned her family business into a cosmetic empire. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Estée Lauder's family ran a hardware store in Corona, Queens

Estée Lauder grew up organizing the storefront window of her father's hardware store, which her family lived above. Lauder was reportedly a natural salesperson, and her experience working with her father is frequently cited as her earliest business training.

Estée Lauder divorced and later remarried Joseph Lauder, her husband and business partner

After first marrying in 1933, Estée Lauder divorced Joseph Lauder, primarily because he wasn't as driven and ambitious as Estée. They ultimately remarried in 1942 and were rarely seen apart. While Estée was a visionary leader for the company, Joseph handled much of the behind-the-scenes work.

Estée Lauder was famously evasive about many personal details of her life

While Estée Lauder's name is known worldwide, many details of her life are shrouded in mystery, such as the year she was born. Lauder was criticized for her lifelong "social climb" and her drive to join "high society," which may be why she never shared many particulars about her humble childhood. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Leonard Lauder, one of Estée's sons, invented the slant on a tube of lipstick

Leonard Lauder was known for being an innovator, both in business and in product. He's credited with creating the now-standard slant of a lipstick tube, slicing the top off a then-bullet-shaped lipstick to better fit women's lips. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

With the advent of charge cards, Estée Lauder fought to get her products in department stores to benefit from impulse purchases

Because Estée Lauder focused on personal relationships and demonstrations as one of her primary sales strategies, getting her product in front of enough people was an early struggle. Similarly, many customers wanted to buy her products, but didn't always have the cash on hand. One of her biggest accomplishments was earning a retail spot at Saks on 5th Ave in Manhattan, which paved the way for her brand to become a household name and gave customers more flexibility to make purchases on the spot.

'Telephone, telegraph, tell a woman:' Listen to Estée Lauder's legendary vision for word-of-mouth marketing

Without a large advertising budget, Lauder focused her marketing strategy on making high-quality products that women would love enough to tell their friends about. Those friends would later inevitably buy Estée Lauder products.

Estée Lauder used wealthy people's bathrooms to curate the color of the jars her products were sold in

While Lauder herself was just starting her cosmetics empire, she knew wealthy people who could afford high-quality products would always be her target market. In order to make her products as appealing to this market as possible, Lauder held up different colors of glass bottles in people's bathrooms to see what would look best with their decorations before landing on a turquoise bottle with a gold cap.

Dual-class stock structures separate equity and decision-making authority

In the past few decades, dual-class stock structures have become an increasingly popular way for companies to raise capital in public markets without allocating traditional shareholder voting rights. Meta, Estée Lauder, and The New York Times are companies that are famously dual-class.

Kevin Warsh married Estée Lauder's granddaughter in 2002

The newest Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, is married to Jane Lauder, who served as Estée Lauder Companies' chief data officer until late 2024. Her stake in Estée Lauder Companies is part of what makes Warsh the richest Fed chair on record.

Estée Lauder once broke a bottle of the hit perfume 'Youth Dew' to convince French department stores to carry the product

Youth Dew, originally launched in 1953 as a bath oil, was wildly successful in the American market and one of the early products that cemented Estée Lauder as a luxury cosmetics brand. When the Galeries Lafayette in Paris hesitated to sell the perfume, Lauder "accidentally" broke a bottle of Youth Dew, causing the smell to spread throughout the department store. Shoppers began asking for the scent, and the department store agreed to sell it.

See every brand that LVMH—the world's largest luxury goods holding company—owns, from luxury fashion and jewelry brands like Tiffany & Co., Fendi, and Louis Vuitton to beauty supply store Sephora and the hotel group Belmond.

Technically speaking, Christian Dior SE is the primary holding company of LVMH

That's because it owns about 42% of LVMH's shares and controls about 57% of its voting rights. It's a complex relationship, given that Christian Dior the fashion house is one of LVMH's "maisons."

Many of luxury holding company LVMH's acquisitions were due to chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault's search for undervalued companies.

To ward off competition from Revlon, Estée Lauder launched Clinique—the first dermatologist-approved skincare line—in 1968

Clinique launched in 1968 as an entire product line, as opposed to just a single product, which was rare for cosmetics brands at the time. Clinique marked Estée Lauder's first venture into a younger, less luxury-oriented retail market.

LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault's children are involved in the business

Arnault has five children, and each of them hold executive roles under LVMH. His daughter Delphine Arnault, for instance, is the CEO of Christian Dior Couture as of this writing.

Ozempic parent company Novo Nordisk operates under a 'foundation ownership model'—meaning that a foundation holds the majority of the company's voting power, while most of its equity is owned by public investors.

See LVMH's current market capitalization

As of early March 2026, LVMH has a market cap of $292.8B, making it the world's 49th most valuable company by market cap.

How the Rockefellers' wealth evolved over time

The Rockefellers built one of the most powerful business empires in US history. By the early 1900s, their company, Standard Oil, controlled over 90% of the US oil market.

Hermes once usurped LVMH as the world's most valuable luxury company in April 2025

At the time, Hermes's market capitalization surpassed LVMH's after a tough earnings report for LVMH in Q1 2025. The news came roughly fifteen years after LVMH tried to quietly build a stake in Hermes.

LVMH's history can be traced back to 1854, the year Louis Vuitton was started

Louis Vuitton was founded by a craftsman's apprentice who specialized in trunk-making. Since its merger with Moët Hennessy in 1987, which created LVMH, the conglomerate has been considered a powerhouse in the business world. "I would argue that next to Apple, no other company on the planet dominates their industry as completely as LVMH," one financial expert said.

Bezos owned roughly 8% of Amazon as of 2025

Three decades after founding Amazon, Jeff Bezos has built a sprawling empire of businesses and financial interests. Other large stakeholders in the company include Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy and Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott. This article provides more details on who owns how much of Amazon.

Family CEOs tend to prioritize a non-economic goal: keeping the business in the family

Companies led by family CEOs tend to prioritize corporate social responsibility, but they also tend to invest less in innovation and international growth. They also have more debt on average.

The Walton family behind Walmart is the world’s richest family with $432B

The world’s 10 richest families, including the families behind Hermès and Mars, control hundreds of billions of dollars worth of the world’s wealth.

More than half of today's family offices—the private companies that help ultrawealthy individuals manage their fortunes—were incorporated after 2010.

LVMH's roughly 75 brands are categorized into six distinct business groups

The groups are as follows: Wines and Spirits, Fashion and Leather Goods, Perfumes and Cosmetics, Watches and Jewelry, Selective Retailing, and Other Activities.

The wealthiest Americans own the vast majority of the stock market

Recent data from the Federal Reserve shows that the richest people in America own 93% of all the country's stock—the highest level ever recorded. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of Americans held just 1% of all stocks.

LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault was among the world's 10 wealthiest people as of early 2026

With a reported net worth of about $190B, Arnault consistently ranks among the world's richest individuals. He held the number one spot on the list until early 2023, when Elon Musk overtook him.

Family offices have been increasing their allocations to private credit

Private firms that manage family fortunes have been investing more in alternatives like venture capital and real estate, impacting the wider financial world.

One of LVMH's key business innovations was widening the luxury market's target audience

While certain items under the LVMH umbrella can cost thousands of dollars, like large Louis Vuitton bags, others, like coin purses or lipstick, cost significantly less. Some argue that these comparatively lower-priced items allows LVMH's target audience to be much larger in size than it would have been if it only targeted the world's wealthiest shoppers, whereas others argue that it makes the brand more vulnerable to economic downturns.

Should companies be owned by their workers?

In the last half-century, so-called private equity has transformed industries by purchasing private companies, cutting costs, loading up debt, and then selling the business at a premium—all at a huge profit to the investors. Workers, on the other hand, are often left with nothing. Listen to how both pro-worker economists and a private equity stalwart are trying to shift ownership to workers—a growing tactic proven to improve worker satisfaction and company value.

American CEOs are so wealthy in part because of stock buybacks, the process of a company purchasing shares of its own stock.

Family offices are estimated to manage more assets globally than hedge funds

As baby boomers prepare to transfer more than $84T in assets to the next generation over the next 20 years, family offices’ impact is expanding.

American Express is one of Warren Buffett's top stocks

Buffett's long investment in American Express is indicative of his highly principled investment strategy. Buffett often invested in longstanding businesses with strong core products and services. As of 2025, Buffett owned around 20% of all American Express stock, and his investment in American Express made up around 16% of his portfolio.

Tiffany & Co. was among LVMH's most expensive—and complex—acquisitions

Three years after LVMH acquired Tiffany in 2021 for $15.8B, the jeweler's profits doubled to over $1B per year.

An interview with Laurene Powell Jobs

Steve Jobs is survived by his wife Laurene Powell Jobs, who has spent her career supporting social causes. Powell Jobs said she’s working to distribute the billions of dollars she received from her late husband.

Mark Zuckerberg has nearly exclusive decision-making authority in Meta

Meta has a dual-class stock structure, meaning there are two types of stock that have different voting rights. Zuckerberg owns 90% of the company's Class B stock, which is allotted 10 votes per share, whereas Class A shareholders get one vote per share. He's also the CEO and the chairman of the board, meaning Zuckerberg has majority control over the company. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Some refer to LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault as 'The Wolf in the Cashmere Coat'

Likely a play on the phrase, "a wolf in sheep's clothing," the nickname was earned via Arnault's "take no prisoners" approach to business. As he ages, many have wondered who will succeed him as CEO, and if it will be one of his children already employed under the LVMH conglomerate.

Some Ivy Leagues are worth billions of dollars, managing massive endowments to support their operations and investing donations for long-term growth rather than spending them.

Activist investors use large ownership positions to influence companies

By holding large ownership positions, which often come with leveraged access to a company's board or the ability to force a shareholder vote, activist shareholders can change a company's corporate governance, leadership, and overall direction. Critics argue that activist shareholders hurt companies in the long term by prioritizing short-term higher shareholder returns over sustainability and growth efforts.

The origins of modern family offices date back to the 1500s

Wealth management for families with massive fortunes has evolved over the centuries, with the Rockefellers establishing the first single-family office in 1882.

Today’s Rockefellers have become climate activists

The Rockefeller Family Fund has been engaged in more than 40 lawsuits against ExxonMobil, a company that John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil created.

Even iconic companies can get dropped from the Dow

The Dow’s lineup evolves as the economy changes. General Electric, part of the original 1896 index, was removed in 2018, after 122 years. ExxonMobil, once the world’s largest company, was replaced by Salesforce in 2020.

The history of the Rockefellers in 60 seconds

John D. Rockefeller—the world's first billionaire—once controlled 90% of the US oil refining market, built Standard Oil through vertical integration, and used his fortune to fund universities, museums, and landmarks like Rockefeller Center.

Louis Vuitton is considered LVMH's most valuable brand

Louis Vuitton consistently ranks among the world's top 10 most valuable global brands—it's worth an estimated $100B as of this writing.

Family offices’ estimated wealth is expected to hit $9.5T by 2030

The number of family offices, and how much money under their management, is growing rapidly both in the US and around the world.