Zalando SE

Shareholders of Zalando SE

Zalando SE is a publicly listed company with a broad, predominantly institutional shareholder base and no shareholder holding a majority stake. According to Zalando’s own investor relations disclosures, free float as defined by Deutsche Börse AG stood at approximately 88.5% as of 11 September 2026, meaning the large majority of shares are held by dispersed institutional and retail investors rather than by a small number of concentrated strategic holders.

Among shareholders that have publicly crossed statutory notification thresholds under the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG), Danish investor Anders Holch Povlsen has historically been disclosed as a major shareholder above the 10% voting-rights threshold through his investment vehicles; Mr. Povlsen also sits on Zalando’s Supervisory Board as a shareholder representative. UK-based asset manager Baillie Gifford & Co has also been reported in recent years as holding a stake in the region of 10-12%, consistent with its role as a large institutional investor, though Zalando’s own current notifications should be consulted for the precise, up-to-date percentage. Co-founders Robert Gentz and David Schneider continue to hold shares personally, reported at low single-digit percentages each in recent years, reflecting both retained founder equity and additional shares received under management incentive and share-ownership programmes documented in Zalando’s director’s dealings disclosures.

Swedish investment company Kinnevik AB, an early major investor that held approximately 21% of Zalando’s shares, fully exited its position in June 2021 through an in-specie distribution of its entire Zalando shareholding to Kinnevik’s own shareholders. Kinnevik has not been a Zalando shareholder since that distribution was completed.

The structured shareholder data held in Zavia’s underlying dataset for this company listed only four institutional index-fund positions (funds managed by Fidelity, iShares and MFS) as of 4 September 2026, with percentages that could not be reconciled against Zalando’s own disclosed free float and major-shareholder notifications. This dataset is treated as unreliable for a complete shareholder picture and has not been used as the basis for the figures above.

Ultimate beneficial ownership

No single natural person has been identified in the sources reviewed as holding, directly or indirectly, 25% or more of Zalando SE’s shares or voting rights, the threshold commonly applied to natural-person beneficial ownership under German anti-money-laundering law. Anders Holch Povlsen’s disclosed holding, while a reportable major shareholding, has historically been in the region of 10%, below this threshold. Founders Robert Gentz and David Schneider each hold materially smaller, single-digit stakes. Based on the available information, Zalando SE does not appear to have an identifiable ultimate beneficial owner under the 25% threshold; ownership is dispersed among institutional investors and free-float shareholders.

Data availability

Shareholder information for Zalando SE is classified as major shareholders only: statutory WpHG notifications capture holders that cross regulatory thresholds (typically 3% and above), while the majority of the free float is held by shareholders below these thresholds and is not individually disclosed. Percentages cited above for third-party institutional holders reflect the most recent publicly reported notification identified for each and may not represent the current position; Zalando’s own shareholder-structure page is the primary and most current source.

Sources

• Zalando SE, Shareholder structure, corporate.zalando.com – https://corporate.zalando.com/en/investor-relations/shareholder-structure (free float 88.5%, page last updated 11 September 2026; retrieved 25 September 2026)
• Kinnevik AB, “Kinnevik has completed the distribution of its shareholding in Zalando”, 23 June 2021 – https://www.kinnevik.com/investor-relations/press-releases/2021/kinnevik-has-completed-the-distribution-of-its-shareholding-in-zalando-and-commences-re-registration-to-german-zalando-shares/ (retrieved 25 September 2026)
• Zalando SE, Director’s Dealings notification, Robert Gentz, EQS-News – https://www.eqs-news.com/news/managers-transactions/zalando-se-robert-gentz-acquisition-of-5838-shares-as-investment-shares-under-the-zalando-growth-incentive-2024/63906705-a899-4fb2-947a-adad1e047b89_en (2024; retrieved 25 September 2026)

Directors and officers of Zalando SE

Zalando SE has a two-tier board structure typical of a German Societas Europaea, comprising a Management Board (Vorstand) and a Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat). Based on Zalando’s own investor relations pages, current as of September 2026, the Management Board has five members: Co-Chief Executive Officers Robert Gentz and David Schröder, co-founder David Schneider, Chief People Officer Astrid Arndt, and Chief Financial Officer Anna Dimitrova, who joined the Management Board effective 1 January 2026. The nine-member Supervisory Board is chaired by Kelly Bennett, with Mariella Röhm-Kottmann as deputy chair; further shareholder representatives are Anders Holch Povlsen, Niklas Östberg, Alice Delahunt and Peter Sarlin, alongside three employee representatives: Zbigniew Laskowski, Rose Reynolds and Maggie Ratay Sloan.

The underlying officer register data reviewed for this profile also lists a substantial number of former Management Board members and other historical officers, including co-founder Rubin Ritter, whose managing directorship was deregistered around mid-2021, consistent with public reporting that he stepped down from the Management Board at Zalando’s 2021 annual general meeting after announcing his departure in December 2020. Former Chief Financial Officer Sandra Dembeck served on the Management Board from March 2022 until her contract expired in February 2025, before Anna Dimitrova’s appointment.

Several additional names appear in the raw register data with the generic label “Officer” or “Partner” and could not be confirmed as genuine Zalando corporate officers. In particular, entries for T. Rowe Price Group, Vanguard World Fund and Morgan Stanley, together with a duplicate “Partner”-labelled record for Anders Holch Povlsen (who otherwise correctly appears as a Supervisory Board shareholder representative), appear to be shareholder-notification records that were mixed into the officer dataset rather than genuine appointments. These records have been excluded from this overview as unverified and should not be treated as Zalando officers.

Nationality is not disclosed in the sources reviewed for any officer. Consistent with Zavia’s disclosure policy, nationality has not been inferred from any officer’s name, address or country of residence and is reported as “Not disclosed” throughout.

Recent officer changes

• Anna Dimitrova appointed to the Management Board as Chief Financial Officer, effective 1 January 2026 (source: Zalando corporate press release, October 2025).
• David Schröder became Co-Chief Executive Officer in 2024, having previously served as Chief Operating Officer from 2022 to 2024 (source: Zalando Management Board page).
• Sandra Dembeck’s tenure as Chief Financial Officer and Management Board member ended with the expiry of her contract in February 2025 (source: press reporting on her subsequent move to Tengelmann Twenty-One KG).

Data availability

Officer information for Zalando SE is partial: the German Handelsregister publicly discloses Management Board (Vorstand) appointments and terminations, but Supervisory Board composition is not part of the standard commercial-register extract and is instead sourced from the company’s own investor relations disclosures. The raw register dataset reviewed for this profile also contains apparent data-quality issues, including likely misclassified shareholder-notification records presented as officers (see above); these have been excluded rather than reported as verified appointments. Nationality and country of residence are not disclosed for any officer in the sources reviewed.

Sources

• Zalando, Our Management Board, corporate.zalando.com – https://corporate.zalando.com/en/investor-relations/our-management-board (retrieved 25 September 2026)
• Zalando, Our Supervisory Board, corporate.zalando.com – https://corporate.zalando.com/en/investor-relations/our-supervisory-board (retrieved 25 September 2026)
• Zalando, Zalando appoints Anna Dimitrova as CFO, corporate.zalando.com – https://corporate.zalando.com/en/investor-relations/press-release-october-2025-en (October 2025; retrieved 25 September 2026)
• Zalando, Zalando Co-CEO Rubin Ritter Intends To Step Down At Next AGM, corporate.zalando.com – https://corporate.zalando.com/en/financials/zalando-co-ceo-rubin-ritter-intends-step-down-next-agm (December 2020; retrieved 25 September 2026)

Group structure of Zalando SE

Zalando SE is the ultimate parent company of the Zalando group, a multinational corporate group with subsidiaries incorporated across Germany and other European countries, plus a small number of entities outside Europe. Corporate-linkage records reviewed for this profile list several dozen related entities, most of which are direct or indirect operating subsidiaries carrying the Zalando name (logistics, customer-care, marketing, payments and country-specific sales entities) or businesses acquired by the group over time, such as Tradebyte Software (in Germany and the United Kingdom), zLabels GmbH (private-label brand operations), SCAYLE GmbH (Zalando’s B2B e-commerce technology platform) and Titel Media GmbH, publisher of Highsnobiety. Ownership percentages for most individual entities are not disclosed in the sources reviewed.

The most significant recent addition to the group is ABOUT YOU, a Hamburg-based online fashion retailer that Zalando SE acquired through a public takeover offer and subsequent squeeze-out merger completed in 2025 (see below); ABOUT YOU’s own subsidiaries are now indirectly part of the Zalando group.

The corporate-linkage data reviewed also lists a UK entity, I Love Icecream Ltd (company number 09114948), independently confirmed via UK Companies House as 100%-owned by Zalando SE, together with a further overseas subsidiary. No ultimate parent of Zalando SE itself was identified in the sources reviewed; the company’s disclosed free float and major shareholders (see the Shareholders section) indicate that Zalando SE is not itself controlled by another corporate group.

Verified corporate relationships

Recent structural changes

• Acquisition of ABOUT YOU: Zalando acquired approximately 91.45% of ABOUT YOU’s share capital via a public takeover offer that closed on 11 July 2025; remaining minority shareholders were excluded through a squeeze-out merger registered in the Hamburg commercial register on 6 November 2025, after which ABOUT YOU shares were delisted from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
• Acquisition of DeepAR: Zalando announced the acquisition of London-based augmented-reality and 3D-visualisation specialist DeepAR in April 2025, to be operated as an independent company within the Zalando group.

Data availability

Corporate-linkage information for Zalando SE is partial: the group’s structure is drawn from a mix of Handelsregister filings, UK Companies House data and Zalando’s own acquisition disclosures, but ownership percentages for most individual subsidiaries are not published and could not be independently confirmed for this profile. One entity present in the underlying linkage dataset, ABOUT YOU, could initially appear unrelated to Zalando given its long-standing public profile as a separate, competing retailer; it has been retained here only because independently verified reporting confirms Zalando’s 2025 acquisition of the company. No other unverifiable entities from the underlying dataset have been included in the table above.

Sources

• Zalando, ABOUT YOU and Zalando Complete Final Step of their Strategic Combination, corporate.zalando.com – https://corporate.zalando.com/en/financials/about-you-and-zalando-complete-final-step-their-strategic-combination (6 November 2025; retrieved 25 September 2026)
• Zalando acquires 90% of About You and plans minority squeeze-out, Reuters/Yahoo Finance – https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zalando-acquires-90-plans-minority-125756239.html (retrieved 25 September 2026)
• UK Companies House, I Love Icecream Ltd (09114948) – https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09114948 (retrieved 25 September 2026)
• Draper’s, Zalando acquires tech firm DeepAR – https://www.drapersonline.com/news/zalando-acquires-tech-firm-deepar (April 2025; retrieved 25 September 2026)