Online Fashion Retailer Boohoo to Buy Debenhams Brand – Ft

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Online fashion retailer Boohoo Group Plc is set to acquire collapsed British department store group Debenhams in a cut-price deal that will result in the closure of the group’s remaining department stores, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The purchase price is expected to be about 50 million pounds ($68.39 million) and a deal could be announced in the next few days, the newspaper reported, citing two people with knowledge of the transaction.

Boohoo and Debenhams declined to comment on the FT report.

Debenhams was continuing to engage with a number of third parties regarding the sale of all or parts of the business, administrator FRP Advisory said earlier this month.

The Daily Telegraph reported last month that Authentic Brands, owner of the New York department store brand Barneys, was plotting a takeover of Debenhams and was in talks with its administrators.

Administrators for Debenhams said in December it would be wound down, closing all its shops after 242 years in business and putting 12,000 jobs at risk amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Reporting by Arghyadeep Dutta and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Cooney)