1. Identify the exact brand
Write down the official website, product category and country you are researching. Similar names can belong to unrelated businesses. A celebrity’s surname may also appear on several different ventures.
Make the question specific: are you looking for the company selling the product, the registered trademark holder, a parent company or the people who ultimately control it? Those questions can require different evidence.
2. Find the business named on the website
Check the About page, terms of sale, privacy notice and contact information. Record legal names and any registration numbers, not just the logo or trading name. Search the exact company name in quotation marks to find its official site and announcements.
Treat each name as a lead. The merchant processing a sale, a regional distributor and a privacy contact may have different roles. Do not label one as the brand’s owner unless the evidence supports that relationship.
3. Cross-check company and trademark records
Use the registry for the company’s jurisdiction. Match its registration number and history, not only its name. UK Companies House offers company details, officers and filing documents. For companies that file with the US SEC, EDGAR is a place to look for annual reports and disclosed corporate relationships. Neither is a universal directory of every business worldwide.
Trademark records answer a narrower question: which party is recorded against a particular mark? Search the relevant jurisdiction, product category and record status. A trademark holder can differ from the operating business. A registry result is a piece of evidence, not a complete ownership chart.
4. Name the relationship precisely
Separate founder, executive, shareholder, parent company, joint-venture partner, licensee and retailer. These labels are not interchangeable. Being a founder does not establish a current ownership percentage; stocking a product does not establish ownership of its brand.
Look for the statement that supports the exact link you want to draw. If a source only says “partner,” keep that wording until you find stronger evidence. Do not turn a marketing association into a claim about control.
5. Check what was true—and when
Record both the date of the underlying fact and the date you accessed the source. An acquisition announcement can describe a proposed transaction, not a completed one. An older company profile can describe a former structure.
Compare a dated announcement with later filings or an updated official page. When sources disagree, keep the disagreement visible and explain which period each source covers. If you cannot establish the current position, say so.
A worked example: Fenty Beauty
Fenty Beauty’s FAQ describes the beauty business as a joint venture between Rihanna and Kendo Brands. Kendo’s own site places Fenty Beauty in its portfolio and describes Kendo as a division of LVMH. These are useful, separately sourced links—not permission to invent ownership percentages.
The research note below shows how those links sit alongside other public connections. It does not treat every business using the Fenty name as the same legal entity or claim to reconstruct a full corporate ownership chain.
6. Keep an evidence trail, including the gaps
Save a short research note for each relationship. Include the two parties, their exact roles, a source URL, the relevant date and anything the source leaves unresolved. This makes it possible for someone else to check your conclusion instead of trusting a diagram alone.
DeepTrace can help organize public connections into a map and a source-linked report. Open the original pages to verify the findings. Public information can be incomplete or out of date, and the tool does not guarantee a complete list of owners or ultimate beneficial owners. This is a research workflow, not a legal ownership determination.
Your evidence checklist
Copy these fields into your notes. Leave an unknown blank rather than filling it with an assumption.
- Brand and official website
- Legal entity and jurisdiction, if known
- Relationship being claimed
- Original source URL
- Fact date and access date
- Unresolved questions