BOOHOO, the pioneering online fashion retailer started by Mahmud Kamani in 2006, has been a stand-out success story, a result of Mahmud’s foresight when the internet was beginning to transform retail in the early 2000s.

Already supplying clothing chains across Europe, he was keen to set up his own label and trade online, where there were fewer overheads and where he could sell more quickly and cheaply directly from the warehouse.

Mahmud, who followed his father into the clothing business, has already built his own brands in Pinstripe, Starsign and Jogo, while supplying to the likes of Primark and New Look, and knew how to create and sustain brands in the sector. It’s no wonder then that Boohoo, which he launched along with business partner Carol Kane, attracted a valuation of £700million when floated on the Alternative Investment Market in March 2014.

The group celebrated its 15th anniversary last year by outlining plans to create 5,000 new jobs off the back of an investment programme worth over £500m across the UK over the next five years. As it expanded from a single brand in 2006 to a group of 13 world class brands today, the Boohoo group has also grown its global appeal, with almost half of its sales now coming from the US and Australia markets.

Boohoo has bought up a string of companies including NastyGal, Oasis, Coast, Karen Millen and Dorothy Perkins over the years, but their acquisition of the Debenhams brand and website last year, following the collapse of the 242-year-old department store chain, has been a ‘transformational deal’, especially for its significance to the wider British retail landscape. Boohoo has relaunched Debenhams as a marketplace in October 2021, aiming to create the UK’s largest marketplace across fashion, beauty, sport and homeware.

Among the Boohoo group brands,