TPG revives Debenhams links with £175m Boohoo debt deal

The London-listed manner retailer Boohoo Group is adjacent to securing a £175m refinancing boost successful a woody that volition revive memories of 1 of Britain's astir notorious backstage equity takeovers.

Sky News has learnt that Boohoo, which has been embroiled successful a tussle to rename itself arsenic Debenhams, is successful precocious talks to unafraid a important chunk of indebtedness from TPG, the US-based concern giant.

The discussions are said to beryllium adjacent to an agreement, though precise details, including the eventual size of the refinancing bundle and the grade of TPG's contribution, were unclear connected Wednesday evening.

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If confirmed, it volition re-establish TPG arsenic a Debenhams stakeholder much than 20 years aft the buyout steadfast was portion of a consortium which delisted it from the London Stock Exchange.

In 2003, TPG, CVC Capital Partners and Merrill Lynch Private Equity paid £1.7bn to instrumentality the section store concatenation backstage successful a woody which saddled the retailer with implicit £1bn of debt.

They past relisted it 3 years aboriginal successful a flotation which proved to beryllium lucrative for the backstage equity firms but became a poster-child for the fiscal engineering adopted by the industry.

Debenhams' fiscal show deteriorated implicit the pursuing decade, however, amid rapidly shifting user behaviour.

In 2019, the institution fell into medication for the archetypal time, earlier collapsing again soon aft the commencement of the COVID pandemic the pursuing year.

Boohoo, which saw its ain valuation soar arsenic user and capitalist request soared for online manner retailers, snapped up the Debenhams marque successful 2020.

That woody infuriated the Frasers Group tycoon Mike Ashley, who had fought a moving conflict with the Debenhams committee arsenic helium attempted to bargain the company.

Earlier this year, Mr Ashley utilized Frasers' large number involvement successful Boohoo to ballot down its plans to alteration its ineligible sanction to Debenhams - though the institution is present utilizing the sanction arsenic its firm brand.

The group's refinancing needs saw it name Interpath Advisory earlier this year.

In May, the Telegraph reported that Boohoo was talking to costly high-yield lenders astir providing a £50m chunk of indebtedness to the company.

TPG and Interpath declined to comment, portion Boohoo did not respond to an enquiry from Sky News.