THE SHAMING OF SIR SHIFTY
Sir Philip Green branded ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’ by furious MPs Devastating report says he plundered hundreds of millions from doomed BHS His tax exile wife’s STILL reaping a fortune. How long can he cling on to his gong?
SIR PHILIP Green is today branded the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ in a scathing report.
It reveals how the tycoon ‘systematically’ plundered hundreds of millions from BHS before leading it to disaster.
The billionaire enriched his family for more than a decade through a series of shady property deals, awarding himself fat dividend cheques and starving the retailer of investment, Mps conclude.
He doomed the 88-year-old chain by selling to a ‘manifestly unsuitable’ bankrupt – who stuck his ‘hands in the till’ – then blamed everyone but himself for the collapse, the inquiry found.
Last night, amid fresh calls for Sir philip to lose his knighthood, Mps blasted his web of companies that was designed to help him and his wife Tina avoid tax. Sir philip, whose Arcadia Group owns Topshop and Miss Selfridge, bought BHS in 2000 but sold it for £1 in 2015 to Dominic Chappell, a thrice-bankrupt former racing driver with no retail experience.
It crashed into administration in April this year, costing 11,000 jobs and threatening the income of 20,000 pensioners.
Frank Field, work and pensions committee chairman, said: ‘While Sir philip Green signposted blame … to every known player, 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 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?’
Mr Field said Sir Philip, dubbed Sir Shifty, ‘has to decide how much his knighthood is worth’. ‘I think the only slight possibility he has of keeping it is if he pays in full for the pension deficit,’ he told the Daily Telegraph. ‘That’s going to be an enormous sum.’
An inquiry by two Commons committees, whose findings are published today, concludes: ÷ Sir Philip ‘fantastically enriched himself and his family’ to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds until BHS was ‘on life support’; ÷ Lady Green continues reaping tens of millions of pounds from the ruins; ÷ Sir Philip refused to fix a pensions black hole to avoid revealing his mammoth personal earnings, and has a ‘moral duty’ to resolve the mess; ÷ Labour peer Lord (Anthony) Grabiner QC, who oversaw the disastrous sale of BHS as chairman of its parent firm, is branded ‘complacent’ – and could lose his right to be a company director; ÷ Blue chip City companies including Goldman Sachs and Grant Thornton are criticised for ‘providing an expensive badge of legitimacy’.
The report, by MPs on the business and work and pensions committees, took evidence from key players in the deal earlier this year.
It says everyone tried to blame each other, with Sir Philip taking a ‘scattergun approach’, firing blame everywhere but at himself.
The MPs say Mr Chappell was ‘out of his depth’ as a retailer yet funnelled £4.1million from BHS, adding: ‘His description of £2.6million that he personally took, in addition to an outstanding £1.5million family loan, as “a drip in the ocean” is an insult to the employees and pensioners of BHS.’
They add that the firms run by Sir Philip – whose wife lives in tax haven Monaco and ultimately owns the businesses – were set up in a way ‘designed to reduce tax bills’, and also reduced ‘levels of corporate transparency’.
MPs say they ‘found little evidence to support the reputation for retail business acumen for which he received his knighthood’.
‘Sir Philip owes it to the BHS pensioners to find a resolution urgently,’ the report adds.
‘This will undoubtedly require him to make a large financial contribution. He has a moral duty to act.’
BHS stores have been closing and the company’s pension scheme black hole is now £571million. But the MPs say those who created the mess have grown wealthier. ‘The truth is that a large proportion of those who have got rich, or richer, off the back of BHS are to blame,’ the report says.
‘Sir Philip Green, Dominic Chappell and their respective directors, advisers and hangers-on are all culpable.
‘The tragedy is that those who have lost out are the ordinary employees and pensioners. This is the unacceptable face of capitalism.’
It comes days after the Cabinet Office said it was reviewing whether Sir Philip, knighted by Tony Blair in 2006 for services to retail, had brought the honours system into disrepute.
Earlier this month, the Greens took delivery of their third super-yacht, the £100million Lionheart.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, whose late mother worked for BHS, called on Sir Philip to ‘do the right thing’ for members of the pension fund or ‘have his knighthood removed’, adding that he should ‘sell his extra yacht’ if he cannot afford it.
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron added: ‘Knighthoods should be saved for the brave and the brilliant. Philip Green has proved he is neither of those.
‘It cannot be acceptable for him to be sailing around in a £100million superyacht while the workers he failed are left at the door to the job centre.
‘It’s time HMRC stepped in to ensure he pays the financial contribution he owes to BHS pensioners.’
Iain Wright, chairman of the business, innovation and skills committee, said: ‘He got the honour for services to retail, and yet the evidence from BHS is that he is not very good at retail. The sale of BHS to a consortium led by a bankrupt chancer with no retail experience should never have gone ahead.’
BHS will vanish from the high street with the loss of thousands of jobs next month. The administrator of the chain is expected to announce today that all 114 remaining branches will close on August 20.
The department store group had 164 shops when it collapsed into administration in April and around 50 stores have already closed, with the loss of more than 1,300 jobs.
The closure of all its branches is expected to lead to the loss of more than 5,000 jobs.
In total, the group had 11,000 staff members. Of those, around 3,000 were employed by concession operators, including those run by Arcadia Group, which is expected to offer alternative positions to around 1,000 BHS employees.
David Gill, of shop workers’ union Usdaw, said many BHS staff ‘have given their whole working lives to the company and they must be feeling devastated and totally let down’.
Asked for his reaction to being called the unacceptable face of capitalism, Sir Philip told the Mail last night: ‘Good, good, good. Look, so I don’t have to be rude to you, just say goodbye.’
As well as a possible HMRC probe, a preliminary Serious Fraud Office inquiry has been set up. A Government spokesman said: ‘Today’s report is very concerning, and the Insolvency Service is now carrying out an accelerated investigation… But in the long run we need to do more to prevent this kind of irresponsible and reckless behaviour.’