Green doubles ‘TopShop’ pension payout to £50m
New move to plug deficit at Arcadia follows billionaire’s BHS settlement
SIR Philip Green’s Arcadia Group has struck a deal to pay tens of millions of pounds into its pension fund to help plug a near £200million deficit.
The news may help fend off a fresh barrage of attacks on the billionaire over Arcadia, just days after he settled a long-running dispute over the BHS pensions black hole. MPs had been thought to be preparing a fresh broadside at Green.
Arcadia, wholly owned by Green’s family, has doubled payment into the scheme from £25million a year to £50million, Sir Philip said. Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday this weekend, he added: ‘The company has signed a new contribution arrangement with trustees and has already started payment of an additional contribution over and above the previous £25million a year.’
The group has been in the cross-hairs of MPs investigating BHS, and was cited as an example of an unaccountable private company in a recent report by the Work and Pensions Committee, chaired by Green’s chief tormentor Frank Field.
Until now Green has refused demands from MPs to give details of how he would tackle the Arcadia deficit, and the case had threatened to become a fresh battleground between them.
Arcadia’s scheme has 11,000 members, including staff at TopShop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge. Because Arcadia is still a trading company the deficit did not pose the immediate threat to pensioners that the deficit at BHS did. But the BHS debacle had focused public attention on the state of pensions across Green’s retail empire.
But Green said Arcadia is a ‘profitable business’ adding: ‘At close of business last night we had £110million of net debt, many hundreds of millions of substantial assets and strong cash flow.’
The terms have been agreed and signed off with the Arcadia pension fund trustees as part of the revaluation of the scheme’s financial position that takes place every three years. It is understood that The Pensions Regulator is aware of the new payment schedule. The news that Green has
taken steps to plug Arcadia’s deficit came just days after he agreed to pay £363million to rescue the BHS pension scheme, after more than six months of talks with the regulator.
Green sold BHS in 2015 to former bankrupt Dominic Chappell. The business went bust last year leaving the hole in the pension scheme wider than ever, and Green was facing a legal demand from regulators to help fill the gap.
MPs are nervous because pension deficits are ballooning after a fall in yields on gilts – bonds issued by the Government – left a widening gap between pension promises and what funds could deliver. The last published figures for Arcadia’s pension fund, released last summer, showed a deficit of £190 million.