All 118 Debenhams stores to close: 12,000 jobs at risk

The Debenhams website, customer data, related business information and selected contracts are included in the deal but not the stores themselves.

Debenhams’ 118 remaining stores will close forever, after Boohoo bought all of the intellectual property of the department store from its administrators for £55million.

Debenhams Stores Close

The Debenhams website, customer data, related business information and selected contracts are included in the deal but not the stores themselves.

Boohoo announced its plans to rebuild and relaunch the Debenhams site, as it looks to cement itself as the top online fashion brand in the UK and expand into beauty, sport and homeware too.

Mahmud Kamani, the executive chairman, said: “This is a transformational deal for the Group, which allows us to capture the fantastic opportunity as eCommerce continues to grow.

Our ambition is to create the UK’s largest marketplace. Our acquisition of the Debenhams brand is strategically significant as it represents a huge step which accelerates our ambition to be a leader, not just in fashion eCommerce, but in new categories including beauty, sport and homeware.”

Debenhams started the liquidation process in December after being ravaged by the collapse of Philip Green’s Arcadia group. The 242-year-old department store chain’s name will survive even though the physical stores will not with the completion of the Boohoo deal.

John Lyttle, Boohoo chief executive, stated: “The acquisition of the Debenhams brand is an important development for the Group, as we seek to capture incremental growth opportunities arising from the accelerating shift to online retail. We have developed a successful multi-brand direct-to-consumer platform that continues to disrupt the markets that we operate in. The acquisition represents an exciting strategic opportunity to transform our target addressable market through the creation of an online marketplace that leverages Debenhams’ high brand awareness and traffic through the development of beauty and fashion partnerships connecting brands with consumers.”

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