H&M billionaire Stefan Persson’s sprawling property in the English countryside: Ramsbury Estates rears cattle, has 100 cottages, and includes a pub, brewery and distillery – with tours on offer
- Sweden’s richest person, H&M’s Stefan Persson bought a 1,200-hectare country estate in Wiltshire, southern England, in 1997, and has grown his holdings to 7,700 hectares in the years since
- Ramsbury Estates has farmland, forest, and a river for trout fishing – with visitors invited to tour the brewery and distillery, or book a room at the pub
Swedish fashion magnate Stefan Persson, the billionaire son of H&M’s founder, owns a sprawling 7,700-hectare (19,000-acre) country estate in southern England.
As well as letting out properties, farming wheat and barley, and rearing cattle, the estate has its own pub, brewery, distillery and oil press.
Persson is currently the richest person in Sweden and the 116th richest in the world, with a net worth of US$16 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His father, Erling Persson, founded a women’s clothing store called Hennes in 1947, which later became Hennes & Mauritz (H&M).
Stefan joined the company as head of UK operations in 1976 and then succeeded his father as CEO in 1982. He stepped down in 1998 and became the company’s chairman, a role he left in May 2020.
Persson and his family are H&M’s largest shareholders, who via their family office – Ramsbury Invest AB – hold 53.4 per cent of all shares and 77.3 per cent of the votes.
In 1997, Persson splurged some of his fortune on a 3,000-acre country estate in Wiltshire, southern England, which went on to become Ramsbury Estates.
Over the years, it bought up neighbouring estates and swelled to its current size of 19,000 acres.