Lord Rose: Green wanted to punch my headlights out
SIR PHILIP GREEN has a long history of using threats and intimidation, among other unorthodox business practices.
A particularly heated episode was Sir Philip’s attempted purchase of Marks and Spencer in 2004, in one of the most controversial takeover battles of the 21st-century.
Lord Rose of Monewden told The Sunday Telegraph at the time that Sir Philip had threatened to “knock the headlights out” of him if he didn’t do what Sir Philip wanted.
After adding BHS and Arcadia to his high street portfolio in the early 2000s – at the time Lord Rose was Arcadia’s chief executive – Sir Philip turned his eyes to Marks and Spencer in 2004.
Lord Rose said that Sir Philip approached him to set up a meeting about joining his bid team in May 2004. Before he began to speak, Sir Philip asked Lord Rose to sign a confidentiality agreement. Lord Rose said: “I went to have a cup of coffee with him [Green] and he said I can’t have a conversation with you unless you sign this piece of paper. So I signed this piece of paper.” Sir Philip then offered Lord Rose a job as head of food at M&S. “He’d like me to be involved. I said that’s kind of you but I don’t want to be”, said Lord Rose at the time.
Sir Philip confirmed the meeting took place. In 2004 he told this newspaper: “I decided to have a conversation with him and make him an insider because it became obvious from the press campaign that he was interested in some form or other in being involved in M&S”.
The pairing between the men did not continue in a cordial fashion. After another meeting a fortnight later, Lord Rose again turned down the offer of working for Sir Philip, saying he did not want to be his “gofer”.
Describing that meeting, Lord Rose said Sir Philip can be “quite intimidating when he wants to be”. Lord Rose said Sir Philip threatened violence if he took a different job at M&S instead of his offer.
“He said to me: ‘If I come bumper to bumper with you on Monday morning I’ll punch your headlights out’,” Lord Rose told The Sunday Telegraph.
A day later, Lord Rose got a formal job offer from the M&S board to be its chief executive, which he accepted. That week, the board of M&S rejected Sir Philip’s takeover offer, triggering a fiery reaction from the businessman.
One morning, Lord Rose arrived for work at M&S headquarters, then in Baker Street, London. Sir Philip started yelling. “Oi! I want a word with you”, the Mail on Sunday reported he shouted.
He then got physical. “He grabbed me by the lapels,” Lord Rose told The Sunday Telegraph at the time.
Sir Philip upbraided Lord Rose for not taking the job, then pulled out his mobile and rang his wife Tina. He
passed the phone to Lord Rose. She called him a “c---”, according to The
Sunday Times. Lord Rose made it inside the M&S building, where he told staff what had happened. The CCTV of the incident was requested, but the 20 minutes when the dust-up had happened were mysteriously missing.
Lord Rose said Sir Philip did not give up and move on after he failed to recruit him. He told that BBC that Sir Philip would ring him up and sing “If I were a rich man” down the phone at him, reminding him of how much money he could have made if he had accepted the job.