Stefan Persson is still the richest person in Sweden, and the latest billionaire ranking suggests that H&M’s recovery in the stock market has widened his lead rather than narrowed it. According to the 2026 list compiled by Affärsvärlden, the former H&M chief executive has an estimated fortune of SEK 223.6 billion (about €21.0 billion), keeping him ahead of every other Swedish billionaire as the retail group’s share price has strengthened.
Persson has dominated this ranking for more than two decades, and the latest update shows how closely his personal wealth remains tied to the company founded by his family. Affärsvärlden says Stefan Persson and his children together own more than one billion H&M shares, while the wider family controls more than 70 percent of the group’s capital through the Ramsbury holding structure. That concentration helps explain why movements in H&M’s valuation still have such a direct effect on the top of Sweden’s wealth table.
How H&M lifted Stefan Persson’s wealth
The latest ranking does not present a dramatic reshuffle at the top. Instead, it reinforces an old pattern in Swedish business: H&M remains one of the clearest bridges between retail performance and dynastic wealth. Persson’s estimated fortune of SEK 223.6 billion places him well ahead of Antonia Ax:son Johnson and family, ranked second at SEK 136.8 billion (about €12.8 billion).
The rise is significant not only because of the size of the fortune, but because it comes after several years in which H&M was often discussed through the lens of pressure on margins, competition from online-first rivals and questions about the future of fast fashion. The current ranking suggests that the market has regained some confidence in the group. That does not mean H&M’s structural challenges have disappeared, but it does show that the company’s share performance still matters enormously for the Persson family’s standing in Sweden and beyond.
Persson himself no longer runs the company on a day-to-day basis. He served as H&M’s CEO from 1982 to 1998 and later chaired the board for more than two decades before handing over to the third generation in 2020. Even so, he remains the family figure most strongly identified with the group and the person most closely associated with its long-term ownership model.
What Sweden’s rich list says about gender
The Swedish billionaire ranking also offers a useful picture of who holds economic power in Sweden. A woman, Antonia Ax:son Johnson, holds second place, and Kirsten Rausing remains among the very richest names on the list. But the upper tier is still clearly male-dominated.
Among the top 20 entries in Affärsvärlden’s 2026 ranking, only five are women: Antonia Ax:son Johnson, Kirsten Rausing, Sofia Schörling Högberg, Märta Schörling Andreen and Lottie Tham. In other words, women account for just a quarter of the top 20 entries, despite Sweden’s international reputation for gender equality.
That gap does not automatically reflect a single cause. Some of the women near the top are heirs or major owners in established family groups, and the same is true for many of the men. But the imbalance still matters. It suggests that even in one of Europe’s most gender-equal societies, the distribution of very large private fortunes remains far from balanced. The list also includes newer tech names such as former Spotify chief Daniel Ek, ranked ninth with SEK 91.5 billion (about €8.6 billion), but these newer fortunes have not erased the dominance of long-established family wealth.
Which brands belong to H&M Group
One reason H&M Group continues to matter so much in Sweden’s economy is that it is far larger than the main H&M chain alone. The group’s portfolio includes H&M, COS, Weekday, Cheap Monday, Monki, & Other Stories, ARKET, Singular Society and Sellpy.
That mix shows how the company has tried to broaden its reach beyond the classic H&M formula of mass-market fashion. COS and ARKET target customers looking for a more premium or design-led offer. Weekday and Cheap Monday speak more directly to denim and youth-oriented fashion. Monki and & Other Stories have built distinct identities in women’s fashion, while Sellpy reflects the group’s attempt to position itself within the growing second-hand market. Singular Society, meanwhile, moves further away from traditional fast-fashion logic with a membership-based retail model.
For readers outside Sweden, this is an important point. When analysts talk about H&M, they are not discussing a single clothing chain but a wider retail ecosystem that spans value fashion, premium labels and resale.
How Hennes became H&M
The history of H&M Group helps explain why the company remains such a central symbol of Swedish business. It began in 1947, when founder Erling Persson opened a womenswear store in Västerås called Hennes, meaning “Hers” in Swedish. In 1968, the business changed its name to Hennes & Mauritz, broadened its range to include menswear and children’s clothing, and took the first major step toward becoming a family fashion retailer rather than a single-concept shop.
The company was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1974, when the abbreviation H&M also became the public-facing brand identity. Expansion across the Nordic region and wider Europe followed, and the group entered the USA market in 2000 with a flagship opening on Fifth Avenue in New York. Over time, H&M became one of the best-known Swedish consumer brands in the world.
Today, H&M Group says it is present in more than 75 markets worldwide, with online sales in almost 60 of them. Since 2024, the group has been led by CEO Daniel Ervér, while Karl-Johan Persson, Stefan Persson’s son, serves as chair of the board.
The result is a company that is both old and adaptive: still shaped by family control, but increasingly diversified in how it sells fashion and how it presents itself to customers. That combination helps explain why a story about one man’s fortune is also a story about a business that continues to define a large part of Sweden’s corporate identity.
Stefan Persson’s place at the top of Sweden’s rich list is therefore more than a personal ranking. It is a reminder that H&M still sits at the intersection of family ownership, global retail and Swedish capitalism. And while the list includes new tech wealth and a few prominent women, it still shows how concentrated that power remains.
