Kering

Pinault S.A. began as a timber-trading business in 1962. The company was quoted on Euronext Paris in 1988, and in 1994 it diversified beyond timber to become the retail conglomerate Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, or PPR [1]. Over the following two decades it shifted decisively from general retail toward luxury goods. In March 2013 PPR changed its corporate name to Kering, a step the group has described as reflecting its move to a pure luxury business [1].

Kering owns and develops a group of luxury houses spanning fashion, leather goods and jewellery. Its holdings include Gucci, first acquired in 1999; Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga, both brought into the group in 2001; the jeweller Boucheron, acquired in 2004; and the Italian menswear house Brioni, acquired in 2011. The portfolio also includes Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen and the jeweller Pomellato. Kering has held the Valentino fragrance licence since 2018.

For most of the group's history, these fashion houses did not produce their own cosmetics and fragrances in-house. Those categories were instead licensed to specialist beauty companies: the Yves Saint Laurent beauty business was sold to L'Oréal in 2008, while Gucci fragrance and cosmetics were licensed to Coty. As a result, the beauty products sold under Kering's house names were, for many years, made and marketed by outside firms rather than by the group itself.

Kering's expansion has come largely through acquisition. Its entry into luxury came in 1999, when it acquired a controlling 42% stake in the Gucci group [1]; it raised that holding to 99.4% ownership by 2004 [1]. Subsequent purchases added further fashion, leather-goods and jewellery houses to the portfolio, consolidating the shift from retail conglomerate to dedicated luxury group.

In 2023 the group moved directly into cosmetics for the first time, launching an in-house beauty arm called Kering Beauté and acquiring the luxury fragrance company Creed [1]. The aim was to build and manage beauty and fragrance for its own houses rather than continue to license those categories to third parties.

That foray proved short-lived. In October 2025 Kering agreed to sell the beauty division, including Creed, to L'Oréal for about €4 billion [4], and L'Oréal completed its acquisition of Kering Beauté, including the House of Creed, on 31 March 2026 [3]. As part of the arrangement, L'Oréal also took long-term exclusive beauty and fragrance licences for houses including Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga, and rights to Gucci once the existing Coty licence expires [3]. The sale returned Kering to a model in which its fashion houses own the brands while specialist companies develop their beauty and fragrance lines.

Kering is a public company traded on Euronext Paris under the ticker KER and is a constituent of the CAC 40 index. Its largest shareholder is Groupe Artémis, the Pinault family holding company, which holds a controlling stake of roughly 42%, with the remainder held as public float [1].