Boohoo's new warehouse to boost sales capacity to more than $5.5 billion

(Reuters) - British online fashion retailer Boohoo has secured a new warehouse in central England that will boost its sales capacity to more than 4 billion pounds ($5.5 billion), it said on Friday.

Boohoo has agreed a long-term lease for the site in Daventry which is scheduled to become operational in the second quarter of its 2021-22 year.

The warehouse will support the group’s rapid expansion and adds to existing facilities in Burnley and Sheffield in northern England and Wellingborough in central England.

"In aggregate, these sites will give the group net sales capacity in excess of 4 billion pounds," Boohoo said.

Analysts estimate total revenue was about 1.7 billion pounds in 2020-21.

The new warehouse is scalable, with Boohoo expecting to invest more than 50 million pounds in the coming years.

It said the deal is expected to secure up to 500 jobs and in the future create up to a further 1,000 jobs as capacity increases at the site.

In February the group purchased the Debenhams brand out of administration for 55 million pounds and the Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton brands from the administrators of Arcadia for 25.2 million pounds.

Shares in Boohoo have risen 33% over the past year, giving the group a market capitalisation of 4.4 billion pounds.

Last month Boohoo revealed a major consolidation in its supplier base as it published a full list of UK manufacturers to meet a pledge on transparency.

The list was released exactly six months after Boohoo accepted all the recommendations of an independent review led by senior lawyer Allison Levitt which found major failings in its supply chain in England in the wake of newspaper allegations about working conditions and low pay in factories in the Leicester area.

($1 = 0.7315 pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey in London and Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; editing by Amy Caren Daniel and Toby Chopra)