Boohoo aims for boardroom coup at Revolution Beauty, wants McGeorge to head the firm

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 19, 2023

Boohoo Group may be under pressure in its own business but a company in which it holds a large stake — Revolution Beauty — is under even more pressure and on Monday Boohoo moved to exercise more control over it.

It’s proposing to oust the current leadership team and replace them with a key Boohoo non-executive director and its former finance chief.

That comes as Revolution’s shares remain suspended from trading following major accounting issues that delayed its accounts being signed off and uncovered “unacceptable” business practices under the previous senior team that the current execs replaced.

Boohoo is the beneficial owner of approximately 26.6% of the issued share capital of Revolution Beauty Group plc and said that “it has today notified the board... of its intention to vote against the reappointment of Bob Holt, Derek Zissman, and Elizabeth Lake at the upcoming AGM… which has been convened for 27 June”.

It has also “requisitioned a general meeting of Revolution Beauty pursuant to Section 303 of the Companies Act 2006, at which ordinary resolutions will be proposed to remove [the trio] as directors” of the firm and to appoint Alistair McGeorge and Neil Catto as directors.  

It added that as Revolution’s biggest shareholder, it’s “grateful to Bob, Derek and Elizabeth for stabilising the business. However, as [it] transitions to its next phase, where the focus must switch to growth, Boohoo believes a senior leadership team with the right retail, e-commerce and consumer brands experience is required to deliver shareholder value”.

And it believes that McGeorge and Catto are the right people to head the loss-making business. The former is currently non-executive chairman of The Original Factory Shop, as well as a non-executive director of Boohoo, and chair of The Retail Trust. He’d been Chairman of New Look when it was going through its turnaround phase and has worked in the retail industry for the last 30 years.

Catto was CFO of Boohoo from 2011 to 2022 and previously worked in senior roles for a raft of big name outside of the fashion sector.

Revolution Beauty hasn’t issued a response so far.