Victoria’s Secret’s original parent company was called The Limited, Inc.
The Limited, Inc. was the retail company founded by Leslie Wexner that acquired Victoria’s Secret in 1982. Under Wexner’s ownership, Victoria’s Secret expanded from a small lingerie retailer into a large national chain with catalogs, stores and branded fashion events.
In 2002, the parent company changed its name to Limited Brands. The company later adopted the shorter name L Brands in 2013, before separating Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works as independent publicly traded businesses in 2021.
The corporate names are easy to conflate. Intimate Brands was a former subsidiary structure, while L Brands was a later name. The specific name immediately before the 2002 change was The Limited, Inc., usually written with the corporate “Inc.” abbreviation.