Who Owns boohoo?

boohoo now calls itself Debenhams Group — it took the name of a dead department store it had bought out of administration. Companies House records the change across the whole structure: Boohoo Holdings Limited is now Debenhams Group Holdings Limited, and boohoo.com UK Limited’s controller changed to Debenhams Group Holdings 2 Limited on 14 October 2024. The Kamani family, who founded it, all ceased as registered controllers in 2019. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Boohoo today?

The listed parent is a public company owned by its shareholders, with no controlling holder — and it is no longer called boohoo.

The trading company is BOOHOO.COM UK LIMITED (05723154), incorporated 27 February 2006 and registered at Dale Street, Manchester. Its person with significant control is Debenhams Group Holdings 2 Limited (16008705) at 75% or more of shares and votes, notified 14 October 2024.

The renaming runs right through the group, and the register preserves every step:

• Debenhams Group Holdings Limited (11941376) was Boohoo Holdings Limited
• Debenhams Group Holdings 2 Limited (16008705) was Boohoo Holdings 2 Limited
• Debenhams Group Property Holdings 2 Limited (12551904) was Boohoo Property Holdings 2 Limited
• Nasty Gal Limited (10487954) was Boohoo F I Limited

A company that buys a failed brand and then renames itself after it is rare. Doing so across an entire holding structure, on the public record, is rarer still.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

The group’s listed parent sits above the UK companies and has no owner in turn: its shares are held by institutions, private investors and — significantly — by a rival retailer.

Debenhams itself was a department store chain that collapsed in 2019 and closed its shops in 2021. boohoo bought the brand and website only, not the stores, the staff or the leases. Debenhams today is an online marketplace, and the physical business it is named after no longer exists.

The group also holds Boohoo Property Holdings Limited (OE006018), registered in Jersey and recorded on the UK’s Register of Overseas Entities — the regime introduced to identify the owners of UK property held through foreign companies. That register, not Companies House, is where offshore property ownership surfaces.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

No one controls the group. The largest shareholder is Frasers Group — Mike Ashley’s company, covered elsewhere on this site — which built a substantial stake and pushed hard for board representation, in one of the more public boardroom fights in recent British retail.

Frasers is a large shareholder, not an owner. It does not control Debenhams Group and does not appear on any PSC register for it, because the listed parent is exempt from the regime.

The Kamani family retain significant holdings, and Mahmud Kamani has remained the group’s central figure. But the register is clear that none of them is a registrable controller of the trading company any longer, and has not been since 2019.

Official records and evidence

Every company number, previous name, PSC entry and date on this page comes from Companies House and can be checked directly. The ceased-entry list for 05723154 is unusually rich, and worth reading in full:

• Mahmud Abdulla Kamani, Jalaludin Abdullah Kamani, Nurez Abdullah Kamani and Rabia Abdullah Kamani — all four recorded under significant influence or control, all notified 6 April 2016, all ceased 18 April 2019.
• Carol Mary Kane, the co-founder and long-serving executive — same condition, same dates.
• St. Anne’s Trustees Limited, a Guernsey company — significant influence or control, ceased 25 April 2018.

Five individuals ceasing on one day is a restructuring, not five separate departures: the group inserted Boohoo Holdings Limited above the trading company, and the individuals stopped meeting the conditions at that level. It does not mean the family sold.

The Guernsey trustee entry is the more revealing one. A trustee company recorded as a controller indicates shares held in trust, and offshore trusts are the point at which the PSC register’s usefulness usually ends — it names the trustee, not the beneficiaries. Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Ownership history and changes

boohoo was founded in Manchester in 2006 by Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, building on the Kamani family’s existing clothing supply business.

• 2014 — flotation on AIM.
• 2017–2020 — acquires PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis, Warehouse, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Burton and, in 2021, Debenhams — buying brand after brand out of administration.
• 18 April 2019 — the family and Carol Kane cease as registered controllers of the trading company.
• 14 October 2024 — the holding structure changes again.
• 2025 — the group renames itself Debenhams Group.

The 2020 revelations about pay and conditions at Leicester garment factories in boohoo’s supply chain, and the review that followed, are part of why the company’s own name became a liability — and are relevant context for a rebrand onto an acquired one.

Related companies and brands

The group owns boohoo, boohooMAN, PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, Debenhams, Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis, Warehouse, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton.

Almost every one of those names was a separate British high street chain that failed. The group bought the brands and the websites and left the shops behind — so a shopper buying from Dorothy Perkins or Burton online is buying from a Manchester fast fashion company, not from the retailer whose name is on the site.

It is not connected to ASOS, Shein or Missguided — the last now belonging to Frasers Group, which is simultaneously boohoo’s largest shareholder and the owner of one of its former competitors.