Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group is reportedly in talks to sell its Missguided clothing brand.
The firm is bidding to offload it to online fashion titan Shein, according to Sky and the BBC, with the alleged talks coming only a year after Frasers took over the brand.
Frasers Group bought Missguided for £20 million last year after the online fashion retailer collapsed into administration.
Shein was founded in China in 2008 and has become a global giant in the world of fast fashion.
Human rights groups and Western government – including the US and Britain – have accused China of committing crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs.
Shein told the BBC in response to the accusations: “We have zero tolerance for forced labour.
“Our suppliers must adhere to a strict code of conduct that is aligned to the International Labour Organisation’s core conventions.”
According to Sky, a deal is likely to see Shein buy Missguided’s brand and other intellectual property, leaving the head office retained by Frasers.
Manchester-based Missguided was founded by Nitin Passi in 2009 and grew to become one of the UK's biggest online fashion players.
Following supply chain issues, along with being hit by rising freight costs and increasing competition from rivals amid the cost of living crisis gripping the UK, it fell into administration in May 2022, before being picked up by Frasers Group.
Frasers also owns the Mike Ashley-founded Sports Direct chain, and has rapidly expanded by buying brands that have fallen into trouble. including Game, Evans Cycles, Jack Wills and Sofa.com.
While Mr Ashley is no longer Frasers' chief executive, he owns a majority stake in the firm.
Shein now has its headquarters in Singapore and benefitted from sales booming during Covid, and was valued at around $66 billion earlier this year.
There has been speculation Shein will seek to list its shares in the US, but there has been a campaign in America for the company to face a probe over claims people from China’s mainly Muslim Uyghur population were used as forced labour to make some of its clothes.
