The Hut Group (THG) has continued to make waves in the online retail sector with its acquisition of web-hosting business UK-2.
This is the latest in a stream of acquisitions by the fast-growing company, which acquired £60 million worth of companies last year.
It operates online marketplaces Zavvi and Preloved and owns brands like Myprotein and Coggles.
Although the price of the deal remains undisclosed, UK-2 was bought by LDC six years ago for £47 million.
UK-2 will boost the speed of the growth for the company‘s technology platform while it continues to extend its retail offering in international markets.
The surprise move by the company backed by former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy, echos that of Amazon‘s introduction of Amazon Web Services in 2006. This move is thought to have been a key component in the retailer‘s unprecedented online success story.
READ MORE: The Hut Group fuels rumours of imminent float amid skyrocketing sales
“This is a significant technology investment to support our growth plans and provide a world-class proprietary ecommerce platform and infrastructure to increase capacity, speed and resilience for our global customer base,” founder and chief executive Matthew Moulding said.
“We are delighted to welcome UK2 and their highly skilled technology-based team of people to THG.
“The move will also see UK-2 become a core part of our technology proposition within the THG Platform Division, helping us achieve our ambition of becoming a world class platform for technology clients.
“We expect this to be the start of further significant investment in UK technology with a further 1,000 new technology jobs planned over the next three years.”
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