Online fast fashion retailer boohoo.com is poised to pull the trigger on a stock market flotation next month as it joins the rush of retail firms clamouring for a London market listing this year.
Boohoo, which was founded eight years ago, is run by Manchester-based co-fonder Carol Kane and Mahmud Kamani and is working towards an IPO of shares with its financial broker Zeus Capital.
The company could be worth £500m with a spokesperson confirming that it would start trading on AIM during March. It will join companies including Pets At Home, B&M, AO.com, Poundland and Fat Face who hope to raise money by selling stakes on the public equity markets.
Asset management firm Threadneedle Investments has warned that the flood of companies who will float on AIM could overstretch its resources. “We are looking at 60 companies looking to raise about £15bn by April, and we just don‘t have the bandwidth to cover them all,” said James Thorne, small-cap specialist at Threadneedle Investments.
Boohoo has proved successful in the competitive online fashion market and reported a 131 per cent sales surge to £67.3m for its 2012/13 financial year as operating profit rose to £3.3m from just £300,000 for the previous year.
