Fashion retailer Boohoo has paid £55m to acquire Debenhams – with the intention of relaunching it online only.
The cut-price deal for the brand name, intellectual property and customer lists will eventually result in the closure of Debenhams’ 118 remaining stores as none of the sites are included in the sale.
It means that the Debenhams store at Old Market Hereford will close once a closing down sale has finished.
It means that over 10,000 jobs could be lost, although some employees may be offered jobs with the online giant.
Boohoo said: “Debenhams is a long-standing and leading UK fashion and beauty retailer with high brand awareness, and an established online platform with approximately 300 million UK website visits per annum.
“This makes it a top 10 retail website in the UK by traffic. The transaction represents a fantastic opportunity to grow the group’s target addressable market and increase the share of wallet opportunity through a new capital light and low risk operating model that is complementary to the group’s highly successful direct-to-consumer multi-brand platform.”
