Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group further ups Boohoo stake

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has further strengthened its position as the largest single shareholder in Boohoo.

According to a new filing with the London Stock Exchange, the Derbyshire-headquartered retail giant has increased its stake in the fast fashion group from 21.4 per cent to 22 per cent.

The increase comes after the owner of Sports Direct and House of Fraser last upped its stake in the middle of January.

Frasers Group’s stake now stands at almost 10 per cent higher than that of Boohoo co-founder, Mahmud Kamani.

The increase comes after City A.M. revealed the latest financial performance of a raft of Boohoo’s brands including PrettyLittleThing, Burton and Oasis.

Debenhams and NastyGal are still to report their results and are more than two months overdue on Companies House.

For the same financial year, Boohoo reported a pre-tax loss of £90.7m compared to a profit of £7.8m in the prior year and £92.2m in the period before that.

Its revenue also slipped from £1.98bn to £1.76bn over the year although that figure was still ahead of the £1.23bn it reported in 2020.

Its latest set of full-year accounts are due to be published on the London Stock Exchange in May.

For the first half of its current financial year, Boohoo’s revenue fell from £882.4m to £729.1m while its pre-tax losses widened from £15.2m to £26.4m.

City A.M. also investigated why Frasers Group has taken sizeable stakes in the likes of Boohoo, AO, Asos and N Brown over recent years.