H&M spent 15 years building Singapore into its regional hub — then moved the hub to KL

H&M entered Singapore in 2011 with a store at Somerset and made the city its South-east Asia headquarters. Over fifteen years the retail footprint shrank: Tampines Mall closed in August 2020, Waterway Point in January 2021, and the ION Orchard store — open for over ten years — closed in March 2023. Six outlets remained.

On 11 May 2026 staff were told the regional headquarters would move from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. The shift was part of a wider restructuring that replaces H&M's regional layers with four new 'continents'; the new Continent Asia Pacific sits in Shanghai, overseeing five sales markets. Of 256 regional roles, 78 — about 30 percent of the regional support workforce — were to be removed, most of them in Singapore. Interviews ran through June and the new structure was set to operate from 1 July 2026.

H&M said it constantly reviews how it works to stay 'flexible, efficient and fast-moving', and insisted Singapore remains an important market — an office stays, and the retail presence continues. What left was the headquarters function itself: the decisions, and close to eighty jobs with them.