Stockholm — One of H&M’s largest shareholders has lost its patience. Skandia’s actively managed funds have spent the past months selling off most of its stake in Hennes & Mauritz after watching the fashion retailer struggle with weakening sales in its physical stores and intensifying online competition. The Swedish savings and insurance giant says there is a raft of issues H&M would need to address before it will consider investing again. "There’s so much they need to do that I don’t think they’ll solve this quickly," Erik Sjostrom, who oversees more than $3bn as a senior portfolio manager at Skandia, told Bloomberg. H&M, whose biggest shareholder is the billionaire Persson family that started the company in 1947, sank more than 30% last year. This year, the stock is down about 7%. The world’s second-largest fashion chain by sales (after Zara-owner Inditex) needs to start prioritising profitability over growth and present a credible plan for tackling online competition, Sjostrom say...
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