Sweden'S Two Giants Are Sympathetic To Ikea IKEA'S $190 Million Stake In H&M

Sweden's two largest retail giants are sympathetic. Ikea IKEA shares Hennes & Mauritz AB (HM-b.ST) H&M (H&M) by maintaining its independent status as an investment institution. Haines Morris

This week, Interogo Holding AG, which controls IKEA's investment company, spent 1 billion 700 million Swedish kronor, or about $190 million, to buy shares in Haines Maurice group.

According to Sweden

According to the official website of the giant company, Interogo has a Haines, Maurice, 10180000, and A-share Mobile shares through its subsidiary IH CAPITAL HC1 AB, accounting for 0.6% of the total share capital and 0.3% of the voting rights.

Over the past two years, the Stefan Persson Persson company, which is constantly increasing its holdings, now controls 761834072 shares of the company, accounting for 46% of the shares. However, since the family has 194400000 shares of class A shares with a voting power of 10 times, the voting power at the shareholders' meeting is 73.8%.

Interogo spokesman Anders Bylund denied that the investment was to help privatize the Stefan Persson family, and said that after the assessment, the investment in Haines Maurice group would be a long-term financial investment, and the company would not exclude more investment in listed companies.

9 when the three quarter results were disclosed in the middle of the month, the market rumors that Stefan Persson, the son of H&M founder and chairman of Haines Maurice group, had contacted with investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan & Co. Morgan chase, hoping to finance potential large-scale privatization pactions.

Over the past year, with the Stefan Persson increasing its holdings of shares many times, the argument of privatization has been endless. The group and Stefan Persson have repeatedly denied it.

Since its record high in 2015, the Haines and Maurice group has lost a total of 2/3.

In the first five months of this year, Stefan Persson spent a total of about 53 million shares of Haines Maurice group in the open market by holding 6 billion 400 million Swedish kronor, or about $728 million, through holding company Ramsbury.

Stefan Persson was sold off in May.

Hexagon AB (HEXAb.ST) shares were sold over 2 billion Swedish kronor, or about $227 million, and privatization rumors were further fermented.

A month later, when he attended the world's first store opened in Stockholm by the new brand Afound, he said the rumors of privatization continued to stir up from the listing of the group, emphasizing that there was no correlation between family holdings and rumors.

However, in early July, Stefan Persson increased another 8 million 650 thousand shares through several pactions.

The stock price jumped 20% in September 17th, following the increasingly urgent rumors of privatization and the improved sales figures released by the group.

Data show that the three quarter ended August 31st.

Tax sales increased by 9.1% to SEK 64 billion 800 million compared with the same period last year. After tax sales increased by 9% to 55 billion 821 million krona, while the market expectations increased by 5% and 54 billion kronor respectively.

Growth is mainly due to gradual improvement of sales and multiple

Promotion drives

Weakening is also good for sales data.

According to the local exchange rate, tax sales growth narrowed to 4%, far more than analysts' average forecast of 1.9%, and also improved significantly compared with zero growth in the two quarter.