• Home
  • News
  • Business
  • H&M promises more clarity to investors

H&M promises more clarity to investors

By Angela Gonzalez-Rodriguez

loading...

Scroll down to read more

Hennes & Mauritz has promised to provide greater clarity about operations in response to an investor call for more transparency about its online business.

“Especially now when we are not reaching the goals and the share price has been going down, it’s a good time to explain to shareholders how we see the business. We have that responsibility now to be a bit more transparent,” Karl-Johan Persson, chief executive, told the ‘Financial Times’.

In this vein, H&M disclosed some limited extra information about its e-commerce operations last week when it said it expected online revenues to increase by more than a quarter this year. “The fact that H&M gives very scarce information about its e-commerce development creates suspicion about how bad it really is. Growth by 25 per cent does not impress and does not say anything as long as H&M does not communicate the total volume,” said Joacim Olsson, chief executive of the Swedish Shareholders Association.

Orsson has been quite critic with the fashion retailer, adding that “H&M has not been sufficiently transparent in its information to shareholders. There are several examples of this, and the most obvious is their unwillingness to tell the market about how e-commerce develops in general and in different markets, and what margins they have in this part of the company.”

It’s worth recalling that the Swedish fashion retailer will hold its first group meeting between management and investors in February after coming under pressure from a falling share price and drooping profitability.

This is not the first time that management at H&M has to explain its reporting, after they decided to stop revealing monthly sales and begin to hold capital markets days instead. They haven’t held one of these meetings since the firm’s listing in 1974.

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB has a current market cap of 308.20 billion dollars and operates the H&M, H&M Home, COS, Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday and & Other Stories brands.

H&M