Swedish Companies H&M and Thule Winners of Corporate Achievement Awards

Business Wire, March 11, 2003

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 11, 2003

The Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, Inc. and the Swedish Trade Council jointly announced today H&M and Thule Inc. as the winners of "The Achievement Award 2003 for Corporate Excellence." H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden will visit New York City at an award gala dinner on March 28th to present the awards.

H&M was the unanimous choice of the Achievement Award Jury in the category "Most Successful New Establishment in the U.S. Market."

"H&M brought its 'fashion value' concept to the U.S. in early 2000 with the opening of a flagship store on New York's Fifth Avenue. H&M's basic concept is to offer unbeatable value through quality current fashion clothing at very low prices. The New York store was an immediate and big success. H&M continued the development of their U.S. presence and now operates 46 stores in nine states. The U.S. operation achieved breakeven in the fourth quarter of 2002. By any standard, H&M has demonstrated very impressive performance." was part of the jury's motivation.

Thule Inc. - developer and manufacturer of car rack systems - was the jury's choice for "Most Sustained Successful Presence in the U.S. Market with the motivation: "Despite the industry downturn last year, Thule continued double-digit sales growth. During the past 20 years, Thule has built a unique brand name in the U.S. with a solid reputation for quality, performance and customer satisfaction. Thule led a very crowded and competitive field for this award as the year's sustained Swedish success story in the U.S. market."

A jury of distinguished members from the sponsoring organizations evaluated the nominations. The award is co-sponsored by Swedbank and SEB. The award gala dinner will take place at Cipriani 42nd Street and will gather leading executives from both the American and Swedish business communities as well as government representatives.

You will also find this press release at: www.swedishtrade.se/pressinformation or www.saccny.org