Who owns Fuller's?

The stock market owns most of the shares, but the founding families still control most of the votes.

Fuller’s is Fuller, Smith & Turner P.L.C., a London pub company listed on the stock market. As with Young’s, a listing would normally mean no controlling owner, and as with Young’s the answer is in the share structure: the descendants of the three families the company is named after hold a special class of share that carries most of the votes.

And, like Young’s, it is no longer a brewer. Fuller’s sold its brewing business to the Japanese group Asahi in 2019 and now only runs pubs.

What does the register show?

Fuller, Smith & Turner P.L.C. is company number 00241882, incorporated on 22 August 1929 and registered at Pier House, 86–93 Strand on the Green, Chiswick, London. The business itself goes back to 1845, and it is listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

Being listed, Fuller’s is exempt from the persons-with-significant-control register, so Companies House does not name a single owner. The control question is answered by the company’s share classes and its own disclosures instead.

Why the share classes matter

Fuller’s has more than one class of share. The A ordinary shares are the ones the public can buy and trade, and they carry limited voting power. The B shares are held by members of the Fuller, Smith and Turner families and by company insiders, and they carry the bulk of the votes.

The effect is that the families keep control while owning less than all of the company. The company’s own figures have shown the B shares carrying most of the voting rights while entitling their holders to only a small share of the profits, and reporting on Fuller’s has put the founding families’ combined holding at around half the equity and roughly three-quarters of the votes. So the descendants of John Fuller, Henry Smith and John Turner still decide what happens to the company, more than a century and a half after it took their names.

Does Fuller's still brew beer?

No. In 2019 Fuller’s sold its entire beer business — the Griffin Brewery in Chiswick and the brands, including London Pride, ESB and Frontier — to Asahi for £250 million. The brewery and the beers are now owned and made by Asahi; Fuller’s kept the pubs. So a pint of London Pride in a Fuller’s pub is a Japanese-owned beer sold in a family-controlled British pub company.

How big is Fuller's?

Fuller’s runs around 380 pubs and hotels, a mix of managed houses it runs itself and tenanted pubs run by licensees, concentrated in London and the South of England. Since selling the brewery it describes itself as a premium pubs business rather than a brewer.

Is Fuller's independent?

Not by our verified independent badge, which marks a locally and privately owned business rather than a chain, franchise or private-equity estate. Fuller’s is a listed company with hundreds of pubs, so an individual pub is part of a large estate, not a proprietor-owned local.

But, as with Young’s, it is family-controlled rather than owned by a fund, and that is a real difference. The votes sit with the founding families, not with an investor. Our guide to Lincoln pubs that no pub company owns keeps family and brewery pubs in their own category for exactly this reason, and who owns every big UK pub company sets Fuller’s and Young’s next to the private-equity names so you can see the difference.

Questions people ask

Is Fuller's still family-owned?

Family-controlled rather than family-owned outright. The shares are publicly traded, so the families do not own all of Fuller’s, but they hold the B shares that carry most of the votes, which keeps control with the descendants of the founding families.

Does Fuller's still make London Pride?

Not itself. Fuller’s sold the Griffin Brewery and its beer brands, including London Pride, to Asahi in 2019, so the beer is now brewed by Asahi. Fuller’s runs the pubs it is sold in.

Is Fuller's a chain?

It is a listed pub company of around 380 houses, so it is not a local independent. It is a regional premium-pub operator concentrated in London and the South East rather than a national high-street chain.

Last checked 21 September 2026. This article uses the Companies House record for Fuller, Smith & Turner P.L.C. (company 00241882), the company’s own share-class and voting-rights disclosures, contemporary reporting of the founding families’ combined shareholding and voting control, and the 2019 sale of the beer business to Asahi for £250 million. What is not claimed: an exact current percentage of the shares or votes held by the families, and an exact current pub count, both of which move. A listed company does not file the persons-with-significant-control register, so the control finding rests on the share structure and disclosures rather than a PSC filing. If you spot something that needs correcting, email Highstreett and we will review it.