Mahmud Abdullah Kamani is a Britishbillionaire businessman, the co-founder of and joint CEO of Boohoo.com.
Early life
His father Abdullah Kamani left Kenya in the 1960s, and moved to north-west England with his wife and four children. Abdullah started by selling handbags on a market stall, before starting a family textile business, supplying New Look and Primark.
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 £560m, and is worth about £2 billion as of April 2017. 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 2018, his brother Jalal Kamani sold 7.7 million shares for an estimated £15 million, and the Boohoo share price dipped by over 4% after news of the sale. However in April 2018, Boohoo shares recovered after brand PrettyLittleThing doubled sales. Boohoo owns 66% of the brand.
Personal life
Mahmud Kamani and his wife Aisha have three sons. Both Umar Kamani and Adam Kamani, who co-founded, PrettyLittleThing.com, 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 a supply company to Boohoo, Morefray Ltd of paying less than the minimum wage and failing to protect staff from coronavirus during the Covid 19 pandemic. The company is owned by Jalal Kamani, who jointly founded Boohoo with his brother Mahmud.
