40 Friday April 8 2022 | the times
Business
The boss of Boohoo has insisted that its
new “model factory” will be a profitable
production site as clothes for Deben-
hams, Dorothy Perkins and Wallis are
made in Britain again after moving off-
shore almost three decades ago.
Boohoo opened its first factory in
Workspace offices busier
as small businesses return
Poppy KoronkaOccupancy rates at Workspace’s
serviced offices are back at pre-Covid
levels as small and medium-sized
companies return to the workplace.
The commerical landlord, which is
focused mainly on London, said that
like-for-like occupancy levels had risen
by 3 per cent to 89.6 per cent in its
fourth quarter to the end of March.
Enquiries for space rose to 957 a
month, from 910 a year earlier, and
monthly lettings increased to 127 from
111 last year. The company also charged
more, with like-for-like rent rising from
£35.92 per sq ft to £36.39. This helped to
lift like-for-like rental revenue in the
quarter to £92.9 million, a rise of 4 per
cent, with total rental revenue up by
3.5 per cent to £111 million.
Despite rises in coronavirus cases,
use of its centres reached 69 per cent of
pre-pandemic levels in the week that
ended on April 1. More people used the
centres in the middle of the week, peak-
ing at 73 per cent of pre-Covid levels.
Graham Clemett, 61, chief executive,said in the update: “Our strong per-
formance in the fourth quarter demon-
strates further evidence that whilst
[small and medium-sized companies
have always appreciated flexible work-
ing, they also place enormous value on
working together.”
Workspace, which was listed in 1993,
offers flexible offices for London-based
small businesses. Trading was hit by
pandemic lockdowns and restrictions
in the year to March 31, 2021, when it
reported a pre tax loss of £235.7 million,
having booked a pre-tax profit of
£72.5 million a year earlier. It will report
results for the year to the end of March
on June 8.
Last month Workspace made a
£272 million offer for McKay Securities
in cash and shares worth 272p a share at
the time. Clemett said that Workspace
saw the recommended offer as an
opportunity to accelerate growth and
deliver strong returns in the medium
term. The deal will strengthen its office
portfolio in London and the southeast.
Shares in Workspace rose by 22p, or
3.2 per cent, to 705½p.Boohoo’s new factory brings
the rag trade back to Britain
Ashley Armstrong Retail Editor Leicester in January, two years after the
online retailer was engulfed in a
scandal about the poor treatment of
workers in the city’s factories.
The multimillion-pound site has
been designed to show “best in class”
standards, including training schemes
for its workers, who are paid above the
minimum wage and are entitled to the
same holidays and benefits as other
Boohoo staff.
John Lyttle, 55, chief executive, said
that more of Boohoo’s newly acquired
brands would be made in the factory as
it focused on training workers to
produce more complicated designs on
recycled polyester, rather than merely
the simple jersey dresses that Leices-ter’s textile factories typically churn
out. “This site will have its own profit
and loss account, it is charged rent, it
has to be a commercial operation,” Lyt-
tle said.
“I can remember as a young buyer
you would come to Leicester for socks
and knitwear — it was a huge textile
industry — but when everything shift-
ed overseas it was decimated. This site
will show that Leicester does have a
great future.”
Boohoo says that the big advantage
of UK manufacturing is speed, with the
ability to produce items in only two
weeks from design and one week on a
repeated order. This contrasts with the
six-month lead times that high street
brands typically have with overseas
suppliers.
“We have bought some great British
retail names in the past two years, but
the fact is they weren’t making here,”
Lyttle said. “We are going to be making
[clothes] in Britain and 40 per cent of
them are to be sold internationally, so
we’ll be exporting again.
“I think we’ll see more companies
shift to UK and European manufac-
turing. Everything that we’ve seen over
the past two years and even in the past
week with Chinese lockdowns has
heightened the importance of being
closer to home. Shipping delays have
improved since the peak of the crisis,
but container prices are still very high.”
Boohoo was founded in 2006 by
Carol Kane and Mahmud Kamani and
was floated in 2014 with a £560 million
valuation when it was making £110 mil-
lion sales. Having acquired brands
including PrettyLittleThing, Deben-
hams, Oasis and Warehouse, it made
just shy of £2 billion in sales last year.
The new factory, which has about 100
employees, produces 6,000 garments a
week and will reach 20,000 when a
second shift is introduced. As well as
sewing and cutting, it has two high-tech
printing machines that can produce
40,000 graphic printed T-shirts a week.
Shares in Boohoo closed down 2½p,
or 2.7 per cent, at 86¾p.Sykes holidays
branches out
in £300m
treehouse deal
A
company that provides
holidays in eco-cabins
and treehouses on
Forestry Commission
land has been sold in a
deal said to be worth £300 million.
Sykes Holiday Cottages, a cottage