Green slips down rich list after BHS scandal
SIR Philip Green has fallen down the list of the world’s richest people following the BHS pension scandal.
Sir Philip and his wife Tina are now worth £3.8billion, compared with £4.7billion a year ago, dropping from 206th to 339th richest in the world, according to Forbes.
The financial magazine said the couple were “perhaps the most vilified billionaires in Britain”.
The former BHS owner’s £900million loss includes £360million he has agreed to pay the Pensions Regulator to cover the pensions of 19,000 store workers who stood to miss out when the company collapsed last year.
The rest was made up of lower valuations for his Arcadia Group, which includes Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge. Forbes noted that Sir Philip was branded the “unacceptable face of capitalism” in a report from Parliament last year.
The magazine’s profile of the tycoon, who marked his 65th birthday last week with a lavish bash at the Dorchester hotel, also noted MPs’ calls to strip him of his knighthood.
The Forbes billionaires list – the annual ranking of the richest people in the world – features a record number of 2,043 billionaires this year.
It was topped for the fourth year in a row by Microsoft boss Bill Gates, whose huge
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The philanthropist was the last surviving fortune grew £69.4billion.
In second place was investor Warren Buffett, who is worth £6.2billion more than last year and is now worth £8.8billion to grandson of oil tycoon John D Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil.
His wife Margaret McGrath died in 1996. They had six children. £61billion. The biggest gainer was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, in third, whose wealth rose a staggering £22.2billion to £58.7billion.
A decade ago, on the 2007 Billionaires List, he had a net worth of just £3.5billion.
Amazon stock has risen 67 per cent in the past year.
Among the biggest losers on the list was Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley, whose fortune dropped 25 per cent to £2.1billion after an expose about working conditions at his sportswear company.
There are 54 Britons on the list in total, the highest of which are the Hinduja family, in 64th place. Their conglomerate, the Hinduja Group, is worth £12.4billion.