Britain’s Boo.com Goes Broke

Boo.com Group Ltd., a British online retailer that counted the Benetton family and Christian Dior’s chairman among its early investors, went out of business just six months after launching its site. Co-founders Ernst Malmsten and Kajsa Leander brought in KPMG International to liquidate the company, saying their “strenuous efforts” to raise more funds to cover losses had failed. Boo.com claimed to be the “first truly global e-tailer” last November when it started to offer sportswear from designers such as DKNY and Helly Hansen to customers in Europe and North America. But a combination of high setup costs and an inability to attract enough customers led to its demise.