Boohoo parts company with finance chief after just a year

BOOHOO’S finance chief has quit the fast-fashion retailer abruptly just over a year after he took up the post.

Shaun Mccabe is stepping down as chief financial officer with immediate effect, Boohoo said. He will be replaced by Stephen Morana, the former Cazoo finance boss. It comes amid signs of friction between Mr Mccabe and Boohoo, with the online retailer understood to have been keen to make the executive change before any rift deepened.

The Telegraph understands that Mr Mccabe is leaving because his expectations of what he could achieve as Boohoo’s chief financial officer were increasingly different to what Boohoo was expecting from his appointment. Boohoo said his departure was by mutual agreement.

Mr Mccabe took over as chief financial officer in late 2022, having already been on its board as a non-executive.

Since his appointment, shares in Boohoo have stagnated and are broadly flat on where they were in October 2022.

They are trading more than 90pc lower than in the middle of 2020, when lockdowns forced more people to buy their clothes online. Incoming finance boss Mr Morana also previously served on Boohoo’s board, acting as a non-executive director between 2014 and 2017.

Mahmud Kamani, the Boohoo executive chairman, said: “Mr Morana supported us through the IPO (initial public offering) process and in our early years as a plc. While the business has grown significantly since then, Stephen has a wealth of experience with global digital businesses and is therefore very well placed to support the strategy in pursuit of our growth ambitions.”

Boohoo announced the executive change as it said it was currently trading in line with expectations, providing a 5.8pc boost to shares yesterday.

It follows a series of gloomy updates from the retailer in previous quarters.

In its most recent update in October, Boohoo slashed its forecasts for the year, saying revenues would now decline between 12pc and 17pc in the year to the end of February. It previously said sales would drop by 5pc.

Analysts at Jefferies said they were “encouraged to see another strong appointment in the role, particularly given Stephen Morana’s strong digital experience”.