Fast-fashion giant Boohoo acquires remaining stake in widely successful PrettyLittleThing brand for $331 million

• • British fast-fashion giant Boohoo announced Thursday that it had acquired the remaining 34% stake in PrettyLittleThing for an initial consideration of £269.8 million ($331 million).
  • Boohoo initially acquired a 66% stake in the brand in 2017.
  • Since then, PrettyLittleThing has grown at a rapid rate and been dubbed as "the jewel in Boohoo's crown" by analysts.

British fast-fashion retailer Boohoo announced early Thursday morning that it has acquired the remaining 34% stake in PrettyLittleThing, which was set up in 2012 by Adam and Umar Kumani, the two elder sons of Boohoo's founder, Mahmud Kumani.

Boohoo initially acquired a 66% stake in the brand in 2017. Since then, PrettyLittleThing has grown at a rapid rate.

Its revenues grew $460 million in the fiscal year ending in February 2019, which translated as a 107% increase from the previous year. The number of total active customers it had also increased by 70% during that period, up to 5 million. In the fiscal year ending February 2020, it had 6.3 million active customers total.

Because of this, analysts have described PrettyLittleThing as "the jewel in Boohoo's crown."

In a statement on Thursday, PrettyLittleThing founder and CEO Umar Kumani said that he was "incredibly proud" of what he and his team have achieved in a short period of time.

"The team and myself have big ambitions for the brand, and I'm incredibly excited about what the future holds for PLT [PrettyLittleThing] as it embarks on the next stage of its global journey as a fully-owned part of the boohoo group,' he said.

The news comes just two days after Boohoo was forced to defend its accounting practices this week after an activist investor published an in-depth report on the company, accusing it of misleading shareholders about cashflow and profit.