Brands that have the power to change the retail world: top performing European retail brands 2008 is the modest title of a report, published on Brandchannel, that shows how beautifully Interbrand can shuffle together a few statistics, impressions and methodological clues that between them take the form of a must-print document. Top of the treee is H & M, the Swedish clothing giant that still finds time to develop its retail concepts despite spending so much effort in litigation against adidas. Second is French chain Carrefour, followed by the love-it-or-loath-it do-it-yourself concept ofanother Swedish business, IKEA. British stores Tesco and M & S (until recently Marks & Spencer) are fourth and fifth, with the stylish and upwardly-mobile Zara (Spain) sixth.

In terms of countries, the top 25 are distributed as follows:

8 United Kingdom
6 Germany
4 France, Spain
2 Sweden
1 Netherlands