Stefan Persson, Swedish H&M Group’s chairman, has increased his stake in the company, giving the founding family a 40 % share and consolidating its power even more.
70.9 % of voting rights
On 29 June, Stefan Persson, son of founder Erling Persson, bought 1.6 million B shares at a price of 209 Swedish krona (21.5 euro) and added another 520,000 B shares at 214 Swedish krona (22.2 euro) on 3 July. That has given the Persson family 468 million B shares and another 194 A shares. The difference between both share types is that the A share has more voting rights than the B share.
At this point, the Persson family owns 40 % of shares and controls 70.9 % of voting rights at General Assemblies of Shareholders, basically deciding who can join the board by itself.
In its second quarter, H&M achieved another decent 5 % turnover growth to 51.4 billion Swedish krona (5.3 billion euro). Net profit also grew, to 5.9 billion Swedish krona (610 million euro), mainly thanks to several brands’ online surge.
