Aurelia Butler

Inditex owns brands including Zara, Massimo Dutti and Pull and Bear © Bloomberg

Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer, posted an 80 per cent increase in first-quarter net profit as sales surpassed pre-pandemic levels.The owner of brands including Zara, Massimo Dutti and Pull and Bear said net sales for three months from February to the end of April rose 36 per cent to €6.7bn as store footfall recovered sharply. Profit for the quarter was €760mn.Online sales, which boomed at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, dipped only 6 per cent year-on-year, the Spanish group said.Óscar García Maceiras, chief executive, said the group’s performance was underpinned by a “well-differentiated business model” and “a strategic focus on innovation, digitalisation and sustainability”.Net income would have risen to €940mn excluding a €216mn provision against estimated costs related to Ukraine and Russia. The group said Inditex stores in both countries, including its online platforms, had been “temporarily closed” since February 24, the date of the Russian invasion.The company has roughly 500 stores in Russia, its second-largest market in terms of shops.Sales at the company’s 67 stores in China were affected by Covid-related restrictions, but the US cemented its position as the group’s second-largest market with “notable growth”, Inditex said.Inditex recorded a gross margin of 60.1 per cent, the highest in a decade. Operating costs increased 24 per cent.Under a three-year agreement worth more than €100mn signed in May, Inditex has committed to purchase 30 per cent of future production of a textile fibre called Infinna created wholly from textile waste. The company proposes to pay a total dividend €0.93 per share from 2022 profits. More

WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department has banned U.S. money managers from buying any Russian debt or stocks in secondary markets, on top of its existing ban on new-issue purchases, in its latest sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.Despite Washington’s sweeping sanctions in recent months, Americans were still allowed to trade hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets already in circulation on secondary markets. The Treasury said in guidance published on its website on Monday that the ban extends to all Russian debt and that all Russian firms’ shares are affected, not just those of ones specifically named in sanctions. “Consistent with our goal to deny Russia the financial resources it needs to continue its brutal war against Ukraine, Treasury has made clear that U.S. persons are prohibited from making new investments in the success of Russia, including through purchases on the secondary market,” a Treasury spokesperson said on Tuesday.The rules do still allow U.S. investors to sell or continue to hold Russian assets that they already own. Buying shares in U.S. funds that contain Russian debt or equities will also still be possible.Western funds have already dumped Russian assets en masse since the war in Ukraine started.According to Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), Russian government and corporate debt on the international markets added up to just over $472 billion at the start of the year, making it one of the largest emerging market asset pools behind Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey.The combined market cap of Moscow’s main stock exchange meanwhile, is currently around 35 trillion roubles ($588.24 billion) down from over 50 trillion in January.The latest Treasury move surprised some analysts, especially because it was posted in the Frequently Asked Questions section of the department’s website, rather than announced with the most recent round of sanctions.”The surprising new thing here is that trading of all existing debt has been now been prohibited, at least for the U.S. citizens,” said Seaport Global emerging market credit analyst Himanshu Porwal. “We have been trading some of the names like Lukoil very actively, but now the U.S. accounts will be unwilling to transact.”The United States and its allies have imposed several rounds of measures on Moscow since its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.Russia calls its assault a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies say it is a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war.($1 = 59.5000 roubles) More