Permatan king of retail with a reputation in tatters
A bold, brash wheeler-dealer, Sir Philip Green has amassed, along with his wife Lady Tina, a fortune that currently stands at £3.22bn, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
The vast majority of that fortune comes from the Arcadia retail empire, which he bought in 2002 and which controls brands including Topshop, Topman, Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge.
That empire has allowed them to live life in the fast lane, a world of superyachts, apartments in Monaco and friendships with the likes of supermodel Kate Moss.
But it is BHS, which he bought in 2000, that has seen Sir Philip in the news – and in front of MPs – in
recent months. Its collapse in April left 11,000 people out of work and a £571m black hole in its pensions fund.
The Topshop tycoon has come under fire for taking £400m in dividends from BHS before selling the massively indebted firm for £1 in 2015 to businessman Dominic Chappell, who had no previous retail experience and had been declared bankrupt twice.
Appearing in June before MPs from the Commons' Business Innovation and Skills, and Work and Pensions committees, Sir Philip admitted that he sold the business to the “wrong guy”, adding that he will “sort” the firm's pension scheme.
He had previously threatened not to appear in front of their inquiry into the collapse, accusing Labour's Frank Field, who chairs the Work and Pensions committee, of bias and “doing the very best to destroy my reputation”.
That came after the MP said the committees would “laugh” if Sir Philip offered less than £600m to save employees' pensions.
After BHS went into administration in April, Sir Philip was criticised by MPs including Conservative Richard Fuller, who said: “It may be that facing a large and growing pension deficit that the previous owner, when (Chappell's firm) Retail Acquisitions came knocking on his door to purchase his business, went laughing all the way to the bank.
“But if that sale was done on the understanding that it was avoiding a responsibility for those pension losses, then that £1 he received was equivalent to 30 pieces of silver in his betrayal of the employees and pensioners of BHS.”
Sir Philip's knighthood is being reviewed in the wake of the store chain's collapse, the Cabinet Office said in a letter to Labour MP Jim McMahon last week.
Sir Philip was awarded the knighthood in 2006 for “services to the retail industry”. That came two years after he made a failed £9bn bid to buy iconic high street chain Marks and Spencer.
Billionaire Sir Philip was brought up in south London, sent to a private school in Berkshire and went straight into wholesaling shoes and selling jeans.
He made his name when buying and carving up the Sears empire in the late 1990s, ironically selling Wallis and Miss Selfridge to Arcadia.
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