Groupe Bruxelles Lambert

The company now known as GBL was founded in 1972, when Léon Lambert's two holding companies, Compagnie Lambert pour l'Industrie et la Finance (CLIF) and Cofinter, merged with Brufina and Cofinindus, two holding entities associated with the so-called Groupe de Launoit founded by Paul de Launoit. The new company, called Compagnie Bruxelles Lambert pour la Finance et l'Industrie (CBLFI), held controlling stakes in two Belgian banks, Banque de Bruxelles and Banque Lambert, for which merger talks had been ongoing since 1969 and eventually came to fruition in 1975, creating the Bank Brussels Lambert (BBL). In August 1977, in turn, CBLFI was renamed Groupe Bruxelles Lambert.

In 1976, CBLFI restructured and built up various participations in U.S. financial firms, including Lambert Brussels Witter (formerly the research boutique William D. Witter), to form Drexel Burnham Lambert, in which it was the largest shareholder with a 26 percent equity stake. In 1982, GBL sold much of its stake in BBL, reducing it from 47 to 10 percent. BBL was eventually acquired by ING Group in 1998, becoming ING Belgium. In 1982-1983, financier Albert Frère displaced Léon Lambert as the main driving force of GBL;

Since 2012, GBL divested more and more its stakes in Total and Engie. These two companies in the energy sector that constituted 41.5% of the value of GBL in 2011, only represented 4.2% of the portfolio on 31 March 2017. Simultaneously, GBL expanded into new business segments by acquiring stakes in SGS, Umicore, Adidas, Ontex, Parques Reunidos.and Sienna Capital S.a R.l.