Private company

Relay

Logo: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

Retail chain

Lagardère Travel Retail SNC, trading as Relay, is a French travel retailer and a chain of newspaper, magazine, book, and convenience stores, mostly based in train stations and airports. It is owned by Lagardère Travel Retail, a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Louis Hachette Group, itself owned by French billionaire businessman Vincent Bolloré. The company was formed by Louis Hachette in 1852.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

1852Founded1

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Relay Shop in THSR Zuoying Station, Kaohsuing, Taiwan
Photo: SSR2000, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons5

Lagardère Travel Retail SNC, trading as Relay, is a French travel retailer and a chain of newspaper, magazine, book, and convenience stores, mostly based in train stations and airports. It is owned by Lagardère Travel Retail, a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Louis Hachette Group, itself owned by French billionaire businessman Vincent Bolloré.2

Corporate structure

Relay is part of a group headed by Lagardère Group. 97 entities, 11 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Relay started under the name Relais H', when in 1852 Louis Hachette acquired the "trainstations' libraries". The sales of newspapers quickly overperformed the sales of books. To keep books' sales up, Relais H innovated by creating book series and asking specific authors to write those series.

In January 2000, the stores Relais H became Relay. At that time, Relay owned 1,000 stores in 10 countries in Europe and North America.

In October 2012, Lagardère Travel Retail created a joint-venture with Indian Travel Food Services to develop Relay in India.

In February 2016, Lagardère sold its Travel Retail operations in Belgium to the Bpost group for $491 million.

From Wikipedia’s article on Relay (shop), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Owners

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1852Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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