USA: US fashion portal buys Boo name

US portal Fashionmall.com says it has bought the web site of collapsed internet clothing retailer Boo.com. Chief executive Benjamin Nasarin confirmed that his company had purchased "the very heart of Boo.com. All its domain names, trademarks, front-end contents and contents rights." He would not say how much it was costing, but added that it was all being paid for in cash. However, he said more was being paid than for the technology side of the business which was sold to internet venture group Bright Station earlier this week for an estimated £250,000. Mr Nasarin said he considered the "front-end" operations to be worth more than the "back-end" operations as Boo.com had spent $200m (£135m) on building a brand name with strong exposure across Europe. Fashionmall.com will use Boo.com to expand its business in Europe. The firm describes itself as a portal that markets sites focused on fashion merchandise. The New York-based firm was founded in 1994 and listed on the Nasdaq exchange in 1999. On 15 May, it reported a first quarter net loss of $2.845m on sales of $1.08m. Earlier, there was confusion about the sale following reports of it having been announced on the Boo web site. The announcement then seemed to have disappeared and nobody from either company could be contacted. A spokesman for Boo.com's receivers KPMG said he was unaware of the deal.