Aldi ownership is somewhat complicated. Both Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd are wholly owned by foundations established by the original owners, with the families in question as beneficiaries. The actual businesses are mostly run by non-family-members, though, and they’re fairly decentralised – here in Germany, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd together consist of 66 regional companies which are running over 4000 Aldi shops. The same concept applies to other countries where Aldi is active. This means that Trader Joe’s is probably correct in pointing out that they operate independently from Aldi Nord, but both belong – at least in part – to the “Markus-Stiftung”, a foundation established by Theo Albrecht (the founder of Aldi Nord) which holds 100% of Trader Joe’s and 61% of Aldi Nord (the remainder of Aldi Nord is owned by two other family foundations also set up by Theo Albrecht). Aldi Süd, including Aldi US, belongs to a different foundation established by Karl Albrecht (the founder of Aldi Süd).
It should be stressed that Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd are not in competition with each other – they’re quite friendly and cooperative, and especially their international expansion happens in close cooperation: one gets to pick a new country, then the other, and so on. The original division between the two probably took place because the two Albrecht brothers, Karl and Theo, differed in their management styles and splitting the company seemed to be the easiest option to avoid perennial conflict. (There used to be a rumour that the split was about whether Aldi should sell cigarettes, which Aldi Süd only started offering from 2003, but that doesn’t seem to be true.)
