Shein has acquired fashion brand Missguided for an undisclosed sum.

The Chinese online fashion giant’s acquisition of the brand from Frasers Group, which bought Missguided out of administration last year in a deal worth around £20 million, includes an agreement to license the Missguided brand IP to SUMWON Studios, a joint venture between Shein and Missguided founder Nitin Passi.

Sources told Sky News last month that a deal would likely also include Missguided assets such as its head office in London.

Shein said Missguided will be managed through the joint venture, adding that its products and collections would be manufactured through its on-demand production model and sold on its website.

"The joint venture we have entered ushers in a new format of partnerships for Shein, as part of our unwavering commitment to meet customer demand," said Donald Tang, executive chairman of Shein. "Shein aims to reignite the Missguided brand, capitalising on its unique brand personality, and fuelling its global growth through Shein's on-demand production model, unparalleled e-commerce expertise and global reach."

Missguided attributed its fall into administration to factors including increased supply chain costs, general cost inflation and softening consumer confidence in a competitive market.

The collapse reportedly led to 87 staff redundancies with 147 personnel taken on within the wider Frasers Group.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to halt the initial public offering of Shein over accusations of forced labour.

A number of reports, including a 2022 expose from Bloomberg, found that many of its garments contained cotton from China’s Xinjiang region – a controversial part of the country where the government has been accused of forced labour and internment of the Uyghur people.

While Beijing has repeatedly denied any rights abuses, government policies have included the arbitrary detention of the Turkic ethnic group in state-sponsored internment camps, forced labour, suppression of Uyghur religious practices, political indoctrination, severe ill-treatment, forced sterilisation, forced contraception, and forced abortion.

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