The London-listed style retailer Boohoo Group is near securing a £175m refinancing increase in a deal that may revive recollections of one in all Britain’s most infamous personal fairness takeovers.
The discussions are stated to be near an settlement, though exact particulars, together with the last word dimension of the refinancing bundle and the extent of TPG’s contribution, had been unclear on Wednesday night.
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If confirmed, it would re-establish TPG as a Debenhams stakeholder greater than 20 years after the buyout agency was a part of a consortium which delisted it from the London Inventory Alternate.
In 2003, TPG, CVC Capital Companions and Merrill Lynch Non-public Fairness paid £1.7bn to take the division retailer chain personal in a deal which saddled the retailer with over £1bn of debt.
They then relisted it three years later in a flotation which proved to be profitable for the personal fairness corporations however grew to become a poster-child for the monetary engineering adopted by the business.
Debenhams’ monetary efficiency deteriorated over the next decade, nevertheless, amid quickly shifting client behaviour.
In 2019, the corporate fell into administration for the primary time, earlier than collapsing once more quickly after the beginning of the COVID pandemic the next yr.
Boohoo, which noticed its personal valuation soar as client and investor demand soared for on-line style retailers, snapped up the Debenhams model in 2020.
That deal infuriated the Frasers Group tycoon Mike Ashley, who had fought a working battle with the Debenhams board as he tried to purchase the corporate.
Earlier this yr, Mr Ashley used Frasers’ massive minority stake in Boohoo to vote down its plans to vary its authorized identify to Debenhams – though the corporate is now utilizing the identify as its company model.
The group’s refinancing wants noticed it appoint Interpath Advisory earlier this yr.
In Might, the Telegraph reported that Boohoo was speaking to costly high-yield lenders about offering a £50m chunk of debt to the corporate.
