Billionaire family behind Boohoo places £15m in fundraising drive

The billionaire family behind Boohoo invested £15.35 million as part of a near £40 million fundraising to help turn around the struggling fast-fashion giant.
Mahmud Kamani, who co-founded Boohoo in 2006 and is its second-largest shareholder, invested £5.12 million in the company’s latest fundraising drive this month in a show of confidence in the retailer’s future prospects and its new chief executive’s turnaround plan.
Kamani’s sister Rabia Kamani, a minority shareholder, invested £1 million as part of the fundraising while his son Samir Kamani, chief executive of BoohooMan, put in £6.21 million.
His other son Umar Kamani, co-founder of PrettyLittleThing, invested £3 million.
The Manchester-based business, which has appointed Dan Finley as chief executive, raised a total of £39.3 million through a combination of a placing, subscription and retail offer.
The retail offer, which aimed to reach £6 million, raised £400,000.
Separately, it was announced on Friday that Carol Kane, Boohoo’s other co-founder, had purchased 294,350 ordinary shares at 33.88p each. This increases her beneficial interest to about 1.45 per cent of the company’s issued share capital.
Rabia Kamani said: “I invested because of Dan’s track record and his clear plans for Boohoo. He was a winner at JD Sports and has been brilliant for Debenhams. The plans he has set out since becoming group chief executive and the speed with which he has acted on them has been very impressive.”
Finley, who had served as Debenhams’ chief executive since 2022 and was previously multichannel director of JD Sports for ten years, was appointed chief executive this month.
Boohoo announced the surprise departure of its former boss John Lyttle in October, alongside a £222 million debt refinancing and a strategic review of options “to unlock and maximise shareholder value”. Its announcement raised the prospect of a break-up of the mini retail empire, whose collection also spans PrettyLittleThing, Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Warehouse and Wallis.
Boohoo has also been involved in a dispute with shareholder Frasers Group. Frasers has been attempting to install its founder, the retail tycoon Mike Ashley, as chief executive of Boohoo, having accused the board of having “lost its ability to manage” the online fashion company. It is also calling for Boohoo to appoint a restructuring expert, Mike Lennon, as a director.
Frasers Group claimed that Boohoo had “rushed out a chief executive appointment to try to block the say of shareholders”. It asked the board in an open letter to “stop, once and for all, its utter disregard for shareholder views”.
Mahmud Kamani was removed from his role as chairman and was made executive vice-chair last week after Frasers Group expressed concerns over his leadership. The company appointed Tim Morris as independent chairman.
Boohoo said that Finley had identified £30 million of annualised cost savings and “non-core” assets to sell in “due course”, appointed a new independent chairman and helped to raise £40 million to strengthen the balance sheet.