The rise of the Kamani family is frequently described by the British tabloids as one of the UK’s great “rags to riches” tales.

Mahmud Kamani, the patriarch of the family, is the 55-year-old billionaire behind Boohoo, which for the uninitiated, is the UK’s buzzy fast fashion clothing company that has achieved explosive growth in the past few years and is considered one of the few retailers to have dodged the retail doom and gloom.

Kamani, who is now one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country and has worked his way up the UK’s rich list to be worth nearly US$1.5 billion, started his career selling cheap clothes to market stallholders and high-street brands in the UK (including H&M and Primark).

He went on to set up Boohoo with co-founder and designer Carol Kane in 2006, with the idea of cutting out the middle man and selling directly to customers online.  

From the start, Boohoo’s business model was based around being ultra-fast and ultra-cheap; around 3,000 new styles are added each week across its core brands with an average price between US$17 and US$20.

Since going public in 2014, the company has grown to include a host of other brands including PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, and most recently, Coast and Karen Millen, and under the umbrella of Boohoo Group Plc is valued at more than US$3.8 billion.

Group sales have nearly tripled in the past two years, hitting £856.9 million (US$1 billion) for the financial year ending in February, and the company now has its sights firmly set on becoming a global brand with equivalent status to Zara or H&M.