More big share buys for Frasers Group - this time it's Boohoo and Currys

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 20, 2023

​Will Frasers Group ever stop buying business or snapping up stakes in other companies? At the moment it seems unlikely and its latest buys this week are stakes in Boohoo Group and electricals retailer Currys.

It has bought a 5% stake in Boohoo, which it said “is an attractive proposition to us with its laser focus on young female consumers. We see potential synergies and an opportunity to strengthen our own-brand proposition in collaboration with Boohoo, most obviously with Frasers Group brands I Saw It First and Missguided”.

It's an interesting development given that the company has also been buying more shares in online fashion retailer ASOS. And there were unconfirmed reports that it had proposed working more closely with ASOS too but had been rebuffed.

The Boohoo share price has been struggling in recent years. The post-pandemic decline saw it falling from a high of £4.13 a share to todays price of less than 35p that values the whole firm at below £440 million.

Meanwhile the purchase of a 9% stake in Currys comes just days after it was revealed that Frasers has bought a £75 million 19% stake in another electricals specialist, AO World.

The company said: “Our investment in Currys provides us with a valuable opportunity to build on our foothold in the electricals industry as well as deepening the existing relationship between Currys and Studio [Retail], with the potential for further collaboration between the two. Through this investment, we also believe Currys will benefit from Frasers' deep retail know-how and our sector-leading ecosystem.”

Frasers also said that “driving growth through strategic investments is a core part” of its DNA. “Under Michael Murray's leadership, we continue to build on our long track record of establishing supportive shareholder positions in attractive retail companies. We have a clear strategy to identify opportunities to invest in businesses which complement our existing sport, premium and luxury businesses, or help us to build and further utilise our sector-leading ecosystem.”