Boohoo will be renamed Debenhams Group, which marks a crucial step in the plans of the new Chief Executive Dan Finley to breathe new life into the restless online retailer.
Finley, who previously led at the head of Boohoo’s Debenhams Business, says that he plans to replicate the “Marketplace model” throughout the company, supported by the profitable growth of Debenhams since Boohoo gained it from the administration in 2021.
“Debenhams is back,” Finley explained, who confirmed that the group will maintain its own brands and at the same time organize the products of other retailers on his platform. Boohoo believes that this rebrand, which is immediately effective, “reflects an important strategic change” and will serve as a “blueprint for the wider turnaround of the group.”
The company also announced a commotion of his senior leadership: Phil Ellis, who worked together with Finley in running Boohoo’s Debenhams Business, has replaced Stephen Morana as a financial director with immediate effect.
Despite this strategic overhaul, Boohoo reduced his sales forecast for the financial year until February 2025 to £ 1.22 billion, under the estimates of analysts of £ 1.29 billion. The group, known in Manchester, known for owning labels such as Prettyylittlething and Karen Millen, has seen the share price more than 88 percent in the past five years. Bright online competition, the revival of the High Street after the pandemic, and calls to split the company, all took their toll.
Boohoo, founded in 2006 and once under the fastest growing retailers in Great Britain, completed an IPO on the Junior AIM market in London in 2014 with 50p per share, with a first rating of £ 600 million. Co-founders Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane took £ 135 million and £ 25 million from the flotation respectively. Although the fortunes of the group have rented, Finley insists that Debenhams Group now has ‘its best days for us’, and promises to become ‘slimmer, faster and technologically more advanced’.