At H&M, resilience means setting up umbrellas before storm clouds appear
VIDEO | In his introduction of the session, Sander van Tol, Partner at Zanders, reminded us that the only certainty in business is uncertainty. Carl Gemzell, Group Treasurer, H&M then took the mic and illustrated the point by charting H&M’s tumultuous journey through the capital markets of recent years.
“When the sun is shining, that’s when you have to repair your roof. But if you were a treasurer, you will also wonder if the grey clouds are coming and if trouble is already brewing,” says Sander van Tol.
This has certainly rung true for the treasury department at H&M, which has seen the firm through rapid expansion and digitisation in 2014, attaining a revolving credit facility (RCF) in 2017, and the implementation of a supply chain financing programme in 2018 pre-pandemic. The retail giant weathered the pandemic by getting yet another RCF in 2020, and issuing a bond in 2021 – the first ever (!) for the group, that has an all-equity background. Recovery in 2022 was accompanied by a share buyback.
Having helped guide the company through some of its most challenging times in his 20-year tenure with H&M, Carl Gemzell says: “The takeaway is that the treasury’s core function is to make sure the firm has liquidity and financial resilience. And if you do it well, you can leverage that to achieve many things.”
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