STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, reported on Thursday a much smaller-than-expected June-August pretax profit amid cost inflation and slowing consumer spending and one-off expenses related to its exit from Russia.
Pretax profit in the period, the Swedish group’s fiscal third quarter, fell to 689 million Swedish crowns ($60.9 million) from a year-earlier 6.09 billion. Five analysts polled by Refinitiv on average forecast a 2.98 billion crowns profit.
A one-time cost of 2.1 billion crowns related to the winding down of H&M’s Russian operations impacted the result, the company said in a statement.
($1 = 11.3104 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Marie Mannes in Gdansk, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, editing by Terje Solsvik)
