H&M had its initial public offering on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1974. The listing marked the company’s transition from a growing Swedish retailer into a publicly traded business.
H&M began in 1947, when Erling Persson opened a women’s clothing store called Hennes in Västerås. The business expanded, acquired the menswear retailer Mauritz Widforss in 1968, and adopted the Hennes & Mauritz name. By 1974, the combined company was ready for a stock-market listing.
The year is easy to confuse with later milestones. H&M’s stores began using the shorter H&M name in 1974, the same year as the listing, while international expansion and online retail came much later. Today, the company’s shares trade on Nasdaq Stockholm, the modern name associated with the Stockholm exchange.