Mahmud Abdullah Kamani (born August 1964) is a British businessman. He is co-founder and executive chairman of Boohoo Group. He lives in

Mottram St Andrew Mottram St Andrew is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cheshire, England. At the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 census, it had a population of 493. An affluent village in the Cheshire countryside, it is in the Golden Tria ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

Early life

His father Abdullah Kamani is from

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

, India; settled in Kenya, but left in the 1960s due to unrest and moved to north-west England with his wife and three children. Abdullah started by selling handbags at a market stall, before starting a family textile business, supplying New Look and

Primark Primark Limited (; trading as Penneys in Ireland) is an Irish multinational fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with outlets across Europe and in the United States. The original ''Penneys'' brand is not used outside of Irel ...

Career

In 2013, Kamani was awarded ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ at the English Asian Business Awards. In 2015 he was honoured at the Legends of Industry Awards. In April 2017, Boohoo announced that its profits had almost doubled to £31 million on sales up by 51% to almost £300 million. When the company was floated on the stock market in 2014, it was valued at £560 million, and is worth about £3.54 billion as of July 2021. In June 2017, Kamani sold a total of 36.6 million shares together with his siblings, Nurez and Rabia. He sold over £80 million worth of Boohoo shares and raised an additional £50 million by placing 22.7 million new shares. The funds raised are earmarked for the development of a “supersite” warehouse. In April 2018, Boohoo shares recovered after brand PrettyLittleThing doubled sales. Boohoo owns 66% of the brand. In February 2021, Boohoo has bought Arcadia brands Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton out of administration for £25.2 million. Boohoo has bought the brands' e-commerce and digital assets and associated intellectual property rights.

Personal life

Mahmud Kamani and his wife Aisha have three sons. Two of them, Umar Kamani and Adam Kamani, who co-founded PrettyLittleThing, are active in the family business. His brother Jalal Kamani is the former trading director of Boohoo. Mahmud Kamani retains his connection to Kenya by supporting Kibera Kids, a Nairobi-based non-profit organization. In July 2020, allegations were made about the I Saw It First fashion brand and Morefray Ltd, a supply company to Boohoo, of paying less than the minimum wage and failing to protect staff from

coronavirus Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the comm ...

during the

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. The company is owned by Jalal Kamani, who jointly founded Boohoo with his brother Mahmud.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamani, Mahmud 1964 births Living people British billionaires British businesspeople of Indian descent British people of Indian descent British people of Gujarati descent British Muslims British online retailer founders

Mahmud Mahmud is a transliteration of the male Arabic given name (), common in most parts of the Islamic world. It comes from the Arabic triconsonantal root Ḥ-M-D, meaning ''praise'', along with ''Muhammad''. Given name Mahmood * Mahmood Ali (1928 ...