Who Owns Mars? Inside the $129B Reclusive Family Behind the Candy Empire

When candy maker Mars completed its $35.9 billion acquisition of Kellanova in December 2025, it brought Pringles, Cheez-It and Pop-Tarts into the same company as M&M’s, Snickers and Skittles. The deal added those brands to a business with roughly $65 billion in annual sales and operations that extend far beyond snacks. Mars also sells pet food, operates veterinary hospitals and provides animal diagnostics. But one element was largely absent from Mars’s announcement: the Mars family.

The descendants of founder Frank C. Mars still own the privately held company, but they no longer oversee its daily operations. Forbes estimates the family’s wealth at $129 billion, placing it third on the publication’s 2026 list of America’s richest families.

Mars CEO Poul Weihrauch told TIME in 2023 that the company has a supervisory board that includes six family members and outside advisers. That structure is far removed from the business Frank C. Mars started in his kitchen more than a century ago.

Mars does not disclose a full count of living family members or a detailed ownership breakdown. Public records show that ownership is spread across several branches of Frank C. Mars’s descendants, now extending into a fifth generation. The family has also historically kept a low profile, although Weihrauch said in 2023 that the company had become more open.

Rare public appearances

On Jan. 23, Victoria Mars and her sister Pamela Mars-Wright, both fourth-generation family members, appeared at Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Va., with their daughters for the opening of the school’s new Mars STEAM Building, for which they donated $22 million.  (STEAM refers to science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.)

The event was philanthropic rather than corporate. The most recent public Mars event involving a family member came several months earlier.

In August 2025, Mars-Wright attended the 30th-anniversary celebration for Mars Pet Nutrition’s plant in Querétaro, Mexico. Mars had recently completed an expansion of the site after investing more than 3.5 billion Mexican pesos over three years. The company’s announcement listed Mars-Wright alongside executives and Mexican government officials.

Who owns Mars?

Mars traces its history to 1911, when Frank C. Mars began making and selling buttercream candy from his kitchen in Tacoma, Wash. In 1923, he and his son, Forrest E. Mars Sr., developed the Milky Way bar. Forrest Sr. formally joined the company in 1929, the year Mars moved to Chicago and opened a production plant.

Ownership eventually passed to Forrest Sr.’s three children: Forrest Mars Jr., John Mars and Jacqueline Mars. John and Forrest Jr. became co-presidents in 1973 and ran the company together for more than two decades. Forrest Jr. retired in 1999, and John followed in 2001, after which external executives assumed day-to-day management.

Forbes estimates that John Mars and Jacqueline Mars each own about one-third of the company. Their late brother, Forrest Jr., held the remaining third.

After Forrest Jr. died in 2016, his four daughters—Victoria, Pamela, Valerie and Marijke Mars—reportedly inherited his stake. Forbes estimates that each owns about 8 percent of Mars. Because the company is privately held, it does not publish the detailed ownership disclosures required of public corporations.

The fourth generation

Forrest Jr.’s daughters each took different paths at Mars.

Victoria Mars joined the company in France in 1978 as an assistant brand manager for Milky Way. She later became Mars’s first corporate ombudsman, a role that helps employees raise workplace concerns independently, and eventually served as board chair. She left that position in 2017 after three years. Mars still identifies her as a family member and board director.

Pamela Mars-Wright joined Mars in 1986 and held roles in its confectionery and pet-care businesses. She also served four years as board chair. Forbes has more recently described her as the family’s ambassador to the company’s pet care division.

Valerie Mars joined the company in 1992 and spent more than three decades there. For over 20 years, she led corporate development, the function responsible for acquisitions, investments and other long-term growth initiatives. That work placed her near many of the deals that helped turn Mars into a company with businesses beyond candy. She retired at the end of 2024 and joined the board of recycling company PureCycle Technologies this year.

Marijke Mars has been less visible publicly than her sisters. Forbes identifies her as a Mars director.

Other family branches also retain representation at Mars. Jacqueline Mars, a third-generation family member, worked at the company for nearly two decades and later served on its board until 2016. Her son, fourth-generation heir Stephen Badger, is now a director.

The next generation

But the expectation that heirs would spend their entire careers at Mars has changed. In a 2021 interview with Brown Brothers Harriman, Victoria Mars said that, when she joined the company, her father and uncle believed family members should start in entry-level roles. Her first job as an assistant brand manager reflected that approach.

By the time the fifth generation reached working age, she said, the family had adopted a different model. Younger relatives were encouraged to gain experience elsewhere before applying to Mars. The family was also creating a formal employment process rather than treating family membership as an automatic path to a job.

The next generation still holds substantial influence through ownership. CEO Weihrauch said the family reinvests more than 90 percent of profits into the business. That structure gives Mars an advantage unavailable to many public companies. Rather than face pressure from outside shareholders for larger dividends or stock buybacks, the family can keep most of the company’s profits available for acquisitions, expansion and long-term investment.