Online fashion brand Boohoo have made an offer to buy the digital businesses and brands of Coast and Karen Millen. This raises fear for jobs in the brands high street stores. Together Coast and Karen Millen employ around 1,100 people with 32 stores and 177 concessions across the UK.
The Karen Millen company lost £5.7m in the year ending February 2018 after losing £11.9m in the previous financial year. The fate of the brand is in doubt after it was put up for sale in June.
Boohoo has not said their plans for the two retailers if the offer was accepted. This means the future of jobs and high street stores are unknown. Boohoo did say its offer was part of a plan “to lead the fashion e-commerce market globally”.
Boohoo was founded 14 years ago in Manchester and has grown rapidly by selling own brand clothing, shoes, beauty and accessories. It also bought Pretty Little Thing and Nasty Gal brands in 2017. Its market value was £2.7bn on Monday, and shares rose by 1.2% in early trading on Tuesday.
In its statement, Boohoo said: “The board confirms that it has made an offer to acquire the online business of renowned British brands Karen Millen and Coast, together with all associated intellectual property rights.
“The group believes that the online business of these brands would represent highly complementary additions to its scalable multi-brand platform and extend the group’s offer as part of its vision to lead the fashion e-commerce market globally.
“These discussions may or may not result in agreement of a transaction. A further announcement will be made when appropriate.”
