Boohoo.com buys Oasis and Warehouse brands for £5.25million

The fast-fashion internet retailer Boohoo has revealed a deal to buy the online businesses of collapsed chains Oasis and Warehouse for £5.25 million. Boohoo who owns on-line fashion brands, PrettylittleThing, NastyGal, MissPap also bought online divisions of Karen Millen and Coast last year for £18.2m.

Major changes towards high street retailers is being accelerated by the trauma caused by the COVID19, with many chains being forced into radical restructurings. Since the outbreak of the virus, Cath Kidston, Debenhams and Laura Ashley have collapsed into insolvency processes. According to Boohoo, ‘flexible supply chain’ and ‘social media campaigns’ were the growth drivers for the company.

Boohoo was founded by fashion wholesalers in Manchester, Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane in 2006 and has increased its annual sales 24-fold since 2011.

“It was just me, Mahmud, a photographer and the model was Umar’s girlfriend at the time,” Ms. Kane says. Umar is a son of Mahmud, who later co-founded another successful web-based label, PrettyLittleThing, and sold most of it to Boohoo.

Recent research by polling firm YouGov has revealed that 11 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds in the UK had purchased something from Boohoo for themselves in the previous three months.