Boohoo buys London office as base for 600 staff

Boohoo has paid £72m for the new office in Soho, in the capital’s West End, for its London-based brands.

Two years ago, Boohoo, which is headquartered in Manchester, purchased the Karen Millen and Oasis brands. It then followed those up with the acquisitions of the Warehouse, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Burton and Wallis brands.

The retailer said: “The new office is intended to become home for all London-based product, marketing, technology and central support teams, offering flexible working for approximately 600 of our colleagues.”

The deal will be seen as encouraging by landlords and businesses in the West End, which has been hard hit during the pandemic as people worked from home.

Many companies expect that employees will spend less time working from offices than they did before the Covid outbreak, raising fears that retailers and other businesses in big city centres may have to contend with dramatically different patterns of footfall as people commute less.

Boohoo, which had already been growing rapidly, has continued to perform strongly during the pandemic as shoppers switched to online when stores were closed by lockdowns.