Shares of Manchester-based online fashion giant Boohoo Group plc fell 6% on Thursday after the firm’s co-founders — Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane — sold shares in the group worth £142.5 million.

Kamani and Kane between them sold 4.3% of Boohoo’s equity through a placing to institutional investors, reducing their combined holding to 15.8%. 

Executive chairman Kamani sold 35 million shares at 285p, reducing his stake to 13.1%, while executive director Kane sold 15 million shares at the same price, cutting her holding to 2.7%. 

The placing was managed by Zeus Capital and Jefferies.

Shares in Boohoo, up 84% so far this year, closed on Wednesday at 297.1p, giving the firm a current a market capitalisation of £3.42 billion.

In a stock exchange statement, Boohoo said: “The selling shareholders have agreed that they will not, without the company’s and joint global co-ordinators’ prior written consent, dispose of further ordinary shares in the company for a period of 18 months (subject to certain to customary exceptions).”