Green savaged by MPs for ‘bleeding BHS dry’
The Cabinet Office is reviewing the honour he received in 2006 for “services to the retail industry”.
He sold 88-year-old high-street icon BHS in March last year for £1 to Retail Acquisitions, owned by Dominic Chappell, a bankrupt with no retail experience.
Thirteen months later, in April this year, it went into administration plunging 11,000 employees into uncertainty.
Some 20,000 current and former staff also face reduced pensions because the pension fund had a £571milion black hole.
The joint report by the Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Work and Pensions Committees, was highly critical of Mr Chappell and the “directors, advisers and hangers-on” linked to the deal. But the ultimate responsibility lay with Sir Philip, they found.
The Green family had accrued “incredible wealth” in their early, profitable years of owning BHS which Sir Philip bought in 2000 for £200million and which became part of the Taveta group ultimately controlled by his wife Lady Tina. He had “cut costs, sold assets and paid substantial dividends offshore to the ultimate benefit of his wife” while paying very little tax, the MPs noted.
“We found little evidence to support the reputation for retail business acumen for which he received his knighthood.”
It was also “inconceivable” he did not know that Mr Chappell was a “manifestly unsuitable” buyer.
Work and Pensions Committee chairman Frank Field said: “One person, and one person alone, is ultimately responsible for the BHS disaster. The buck stops with him.
“His reputation as the king of retail lies in the ruins of BHS. His family took out of BHS and Arcadia (his retail empire) a fortune beyond the dreams of avarice, and he’s still to make good his boast of ‘fixing’ the pension fund.
“What kind of man is it who can count his fortune in billions but does not know what decent behaviour is?”
Business Committee chairman Iain Wright said: “The actions of people in this sorry and tragic saga have left a stain on the reputation of business which reputable and honourable people in enterprise and commerce will find appalling.
“The sale of BHS to a consortium led by a bankrupt chancer with no retail experience should never have gone ahead.
“The reason it did, however, was Sir Philip Green bulldozing the sale through, without proper oversight or challenge from his weak and impotent board.”
The committee also accused Mr Chappell of in effect having “his hands in the till”, paying himself and his associates “lavish” rewards while BHS foundered.
“Sir Philip Green, Dominic Chappell and their respective directors, advisers and hangerson are all culpable,” said the report. “The tragedy is that those who have lost out are the ordinary employees and pensioners.
“This is the unacceptable face of capitalism.”
There was no response from Sir Philip last night.