Two of the world’s biggest fashion retailers were battered by fears over the Omicron strain yesterday despite posting bumper sales.
Zara owner Inditex and rival H&M reported sales returning to or above pre-pandemic levels, but had billions wiped off their market caps.
Inditex, listed in Madrid, fell 5.2 per cent, to 27.43 euros, wiping 4.7billion euros (£4billion) off its value. Meanwhile H&M’s shares fell 2.8 per cent knocking more than £600million off its market cap.
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Spain’s Inditex saw sales and profit in the nine months to October 31 hit ‘historic highs’.
Meanwhile, the smaller Swedish H&M said that sales returned to pre-Covid levels in the three months to November 30. But the results missed analysts’ expectations.
Omicron’s drive for a revival of Covid cases has made investors nervous ahead of Christmas.
RBC analyst Richard Chamberlain said: ‘The main short-term risk we see for Inditex is further restrictions on stores and travel flows due to Omicron, especially in southern Europe.’
According to him, Inditex accounts for around 15% of all sales in cities that heavily depend on tourism.
H&M said that it is still being hit by the pandemic with 115 shops, mainly in Austria and Slovakia, still closed at the end of November.