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H&M closes last stores in Russia

Swedish fashion retailer H&M announced on Thursday that it had closed its last remaining stores in Russia and Belarus, wrapping up its progressive withdrawal over the Ukraine conflict.

Published: 15 December 2022 14:36 CET
H&M closes last stores in Russia
People enter H&M's flagship Moscow store for the last time before the world's No.2 fashion retailer closes all its stores in Russia for good. Photo: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

After stopping sales in Russia in March after Russia invaded Ukraine, H&M announced in July that it would withdraw from Russia at a cost of 2.1 billion Swedish kronor (about 193 million euros).

“The H&M group’s operations in Russia and Belarus were wound up during the quarter, with the remaining stock being sold off and the last stores having closed on 30 November,” the group said in a statement.

Russia was the group’s sixth largest market at the end of 2021, and represented more than 2 billion krona in revenue as of 2021’s last quarter.

The closure of H&M stores in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine affected the Swedish retailer’s overall revenue.

During the last financial year (December 2021-November 2022), sales climbed 12 percent to 223.6 billion kronor, a six percent increase at constant exchange rate.

Without the closures, H&M said sales would have increased 15 percent and eight percent, respectively.

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ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

Published: 2 April 2024 13:44 CEST
Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa. 

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology. 

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces. 

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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