For Immediate Release
7 March 2014

boohoo.com plc
("boohoo" or the "Company")

Announcement of Placing details and Admission to AIM

Successful Placing to raise £300 million
Market capitalisation of £560 million at Placing Price
Trading starts 14 March 2014 on AIM

boohoo, one of the UK's largest pure-play online, own brand fashion retailers, today announces the successful pricing of its initial public offering ("the IPO") and the placing ("the Placing") of 600 million ordinary shares at 50p per share. It is expected that dealings will commence on AIM at 8.00 a.m. on 14 March 2014.

The Company designs, sources, markets and sells the latest on-trend fashions through the www.boohoo.com website to a core market of 16-24 year old consumers. boohoo is a well-established brand in the UK, Ireland and Australia and currently sells its products into over 100 countries.

boohoo is raising gross proceeds of approximately £300 million, £50 million of which will be used to accelerate its expansion and enhance its working capital base. A proportion of the money raised will be used as part of a multi-stage development plan to grow the Company's distribution facilities and repay the outstanding mortgage on its Burnley warehouse, in addition to funding the infrastructure and IT systems to support future international growth. Approximately £240 million will be used to repay the Convertible Loan notes held by the Company's existing shareholders. Following Admission the Board and the Kamani family will hold approximately 44% of the Company's enlarged share capital. On Admission, the Company is expected to have net cash of approximately £50 million.

The Company is expected to join AIM on 14 March 2014 with a market capitalisation at the Placing Price of approximately £560 million.

The Ordinary Shares will trade under the ticker "BOO" and the ISIN number is: JE00BG6L7297. Zeus Capital is acting as NOMAD and Sole Broker to the Company.

Company highlights

· A strong brand identity and competitive position
o Founded in 2006, boohoo has grown rapidly, developing a brand identity and an international online proposition, and now has over 2.3 million active customers, with approximately 140,000 new customers registering on the website per month
o High fashion, high quality and low price products
o Limited number of direct competitors, focused on a similar age group and price point

· Agile supply chain facilitated by a unique 'Trial and Repeat' model
o Trends transferred from catwalk to closet in as little as six weeks
o Low stock cover of just seven to eight weeks

· A successful track record of revenue generation and profit growth
o For the ten months to December 2013, sales increased by 70% to £91.9m and adjusted EBITDA grew 188% to £10.1m (versus £54.1m and £3.5m respectively for the same period in the prior year)
o Exclusively own brand offering, generating gross margins of over 60 per cent

· A highly experienced management team
o Founded by Joint Chief Executives, Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, who together have a long history of supplying fashionable clothing, accessories and shoes to high street retailers

· Demonstrated international growth
o Currently operates an English language website for all sales in the UK and globally and a local French language website launched in October 2013
o 37% of sales were international for the ten months to December 2013, growing from £18m to £34m

· A compelling growth market
o The global apparel retail market has grown at an average annual growth rate of 2.8% per annum since 2008 and is expected to be worth £987 billion by 2017. Online retail sales are forecast to take 23.5% of total fashion retail sales by 2016 in the UK
o Expansion of the current product range, will allow boohoo to broaden its appeal, supported by engagement through interactive content and marketing
o The Directors believe that boohoo's exciting growth prospects are underpinned by forecast growth in both the domestic and international online fashion retail markets, the Company's highly efficient sourcing model and a robust infrastructure development plan

Commenting on the announcement, Mahmud Kamani, Joint Chief Executive of boohoo, said:

"We are delighted to announce that our initial public offering has been successful. The placing and Admission to AIM marks a significant step for boohoo as we invest in this exciting growth opportunity underpinned by the rapidly growing online retail market.

We would like to welcome our new shareholders to the Company and look forward to continuing to develop our business providing market leading customer service for on-trend, value led fashion clothing and accessories as a publicly quoted company."

Carol Kane, Joint Chief Executive of boohoo, said:

"boohoo is a lifestyle driven, online destination and the 'go to' for the latest fashion trends at affordable prices. We are confident that our competitive position and growing customer base means that we are well placed to capitalise on the fast growing online fashion retail market. Our success to date, coupled with our exciting expansion plans, makes this an ideal time to bring the Company to AIM."




Enquiries:

boohoo.com plc
Mahmud Kamani, Joint Chief Executive
Carol Kane, Joint Chief Executive
Neil Catto, Chief Financial Officer

c/o Buchanan +44 (0)20 7466 5000
Buchanan - Financial PR adviser
Richard Oldworth
Helen Chan
Gabriella Clinkard

Brexit vote day!

The group will provide an update for the four month trading period to December 31(st) on January 15(th) 2019.

Trading Update

Highlights

Group

· Strong revenue growth of 44% (43% CER) across all geographic regions

· Gross margin for the four months 54.2%, up 170bps

· Strong balance sheet with net cash of £189 million (31 December 2017: £127 million)

boohoo

· Revenue £163.5 million, up 15% (14% CER). Year-to-date revenue £372.5 million, up 15% (13% CER)

· Gross margin for the four months 52.2%, up 150bps

PrettyLittleThing

· Revenue £144.2 million, up 95% (96% CER). Year-to-date revenue £312.8 million, up 114% (115% CER)

· Gross margin for the four months 56.4%, up 110bps

Nasty Gal

· Revenue £20.6 million, up 74% (76% CER). Year-to-date revenue £38.3 million, up 89% (93% CER)

· Gross margin for the four months 54.4% (2018: 55.3%)

Guidance

Group revenue growth for the financial year to 28 February 2019 is expected to be 43% to 45%, ahead of our previous guidance of 38% to 43%. We expect group adjusted EBITDA margins to be between 9.25% and 9.75%, narrowing the range from the 9% to 10% as previously guided. All other guidance remains unchanged.

Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, Joint CEOs, commented:

"We are delighted to be reporting yet another great set of financial and operational results and would like to say a very big thank you to all our team and customers. We remain firmly focused on continuing to provide our customers with great fashion at unbeatable value. The global growth opportunity is significant and we will be addressing it in a controlled way - investing in our proposition, operations and infrastructure to capitalise on the opportunity."

I wonder if it will help the sp this time? ??

Barclays comment today:
"Given the pain that has been felt elsewhere through peak trading, Boohoo’s ability to deliver a small revenue beat at a decent gross margin, as well as a small guidance upgrade, is pretty impressive. However, we think expectations heading into this statement had risen after the company put out a comment in mid-December saying they were “trading comfortably in line with market expectations” and a strong share price performance in the last couple of weeks. The guidance uplift doesn’t point to any upgrade to consensus. And although PLT has again been very strong, bears have something to run with: Boohoo hasn’t seen growth accelerate from 1H despite a markedly easier comp. So although this statement definitely justifies a large outperformance vs ecommerce in recent weeks, it doesn’t necessarily give a big further positive injection.

We are Equal Weight. Valuation is expensive on EV/Sales (2.3x vs ASOS on 0.8x) and EV/EBITDA (24x vs ASOS on 15x) but not on P/E (Boohoo’s 38x a discount to ASOS 46x). That reflects big differences in capital intensity between the businesses. But we do see the gap in ROIC in our ASOS model (8%) vs our Boohoo model (greater than 50%) as unsustainable long term, if not quickly reversible near term. We see more value in ASOS here, if not necessarily earnings momentum."

very tempted to add but got enuf of asos and boo to refrain from doing so..
(I will never learn-but have fun in meantime)

not today though!!

Barclays Capital today reaffirms its equal weight investment rating on Boohoo.com Plc (LON:BOO) and cut its price target to 190p (from 240p).

Bad news: MoneyWeek recommends "three to sell" which includes BOO
Good news: MoneyWeek frequently wrong of late

but I guess we all are sometimes..

ASC has certainly been the one to follow and trade recently