Published January 31,2024
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H&M chief government Helena Helmersson introduced Wednesday she was stepping down, sending shares within the style retailer tumbling because the Swedish firm additionally reported lower-than-expected earnings within the fourth quarter.
Helmersson, who has spent 26 years on the firm and the final 4 on the helm, stated the job had been “very demanding at times for me personally” after navigating via the “pandemic, and several geopolitical and macro-economic challenges.”
She shall be changed by 42-year-old Daniel Erver, who has labored for the group for 18 years in varied roles and most just lately as head of the H&M model.
H&M’s shares plunged by 9 % on the Stockholm inventory trade after the announcement.
During Helmersson’s tenure, the corporate’s share worth has fallen by virtually 20 %, from 207 kronor in 2020 to 168 kronor ($24.40), the closing worth on Tuesday.
The group, the world’s second greatest style retailer after Zara proprietor Inditex, posted a web revenue of 8.75 billion kronor ($840 million) in 2023, a 2.5-fold enhance from a yr earlier, citing larger gross sales and improved margins.
“Our improvement work in the supply chain and continued normalisation of the external factors that influence purchasing costs resulted in a stronger gross margin,” Helmersson stated within the earnings report.
“For many consumers the year was marked by lower purchasing power because of high inflation and high interest rates. Despite this, our net sales in comparable markets increased in relation to 2022,” she added.
MISSED EXPECTATIONS
Net gross sales rose by six % for the complete yr to 236 billion kronor.
But within the fourth quarter, the style large reported a 4 % drop in web gross sales in native currencies.
H&M’s web revenue within the fourth quarter reached 1.58 billion kronor, up from a web lack of 864 million kronor a yr earlier.
But it fell far in need of analyst expectations of a revenue of three.12 billion kronor, based on a Bloomberg survey.
Operating revenue for the yr greater than doubled to 14.5 billion kronor, equivalent to an working margin that just about doubled in the course of the interval, from 3.2 to six.2 %.
The firm’s fiscal yr runs from December to November.
In 2022, the corporate’s withdrawal from Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and a cost-cutting programme value it virtually 2.6 billion kronor.
The group, whose different manufacturers embrace COS, Arket, & Other Stories and Monki, stated it noticed “good conditions for continued profitable and sustainable growth in 2024.”
H&M stated that, as of November 30, it had 4,369 shops world wide, 96 fewer than a yr earlier.
The common variety of workers “converted into fulltime positions,” was 101,103 on the identical time, a discount of about 5,000 in comparison with a yr earlier.
It additionally stated it goals to “increase sales by 10-15 percent per year with continued high profitability.”
Source: www.anews.com.tr
