Umar Kamani, who furloughed dozens of staff, sells his stake in Pretty Little Thing to his dad for £324million

• Pramod Thomas
• 28 May, 2020

By: Pramod Thomas

JUST weeks after furloughing dozens of staff, Pretty Little Thing founder Umar Kamani has sold his stake in the company to his father Mahmud Kamani’s firm Boohoo for up to £324million.

The original deal is for £269.8 million, but it could go up by another £54 million if Boohoo shares hit 491p a share for six months at some point over the next four years, The Daily Mail reported.

Post the deal, Kamani will continue to work as the firm’s CEO. He and his fellow shareholders will get £161.9 million in cash, and the rest in Boohoo shares, the report said.

Kamani, who enjoys a luxurious lifestyle, has a personal wealth of more than £1 billion. He regularly travels by private jet to socialise with the likes of P Diddy, Jennifer Lopez and Denzel Washington. He pledged to donate an entire month’s salary to struggling small businesses affected by the pandemic back in March.

His Manchester-based firm used the government’s scheme to furlough 86 workers. The furlough scheme uses taxpayers’ money to pay workers 80 per cent of their usual income up to a maximum of £2,500 per month.

Mahmud Kamani and family was in the 16th position with a fortune of £920 million in the 2019 Asian Rich List.

Pretty Little Thing had a turnover of £374 million in 2018. Since Boohoo bought a stake in Pretty Little Thing in January 2017 of 66 per cent, revenues have hit £516 million with profits of £45.2 million after-tax.

“After this acquisition and with its growing platform of wholly-owned, innovative fashion brands, the group believes it can continue to successfully disrupt the international markets it operates in today whilst retaining a strong balance sheet to take advantage of numerous M&A opportunities that are likely to emerge in the global fashion industry over the coming months,” Boohoo said in a statement.

Love Island stars such as Molly-Mae Hague and girl band Little Mix are among the celebrities to have publicly endorsed the Pretty Little Thing brand in recent years, with other celebrities including Kylie Jenner, Khloe Kardashian, Nicole Scherzinger and Paris Hilton also seen wearing the label.