Green can’t escape truth
SIR Philip Green faces his sternest test today. As someone who runs a privately- owned retail empire, the Topshop and former BHS proprietor largely operates in the shadows away from the public gaze.
Such financial, commercial and fashion information that is released is strictly on his terms or has to be gleaned from a complex web of accounts lodged at Companies House.
Indeed, in some ways this has worked against Green. Had the intention to sell BHS to serial bankrupt and fantasist Dominic Chappell been in the public domain, then Green might have been saved by media disclosures from a disastrous error.
The former BHS chief has made the right decision in promising to appear before the joint Business and Pensions select committees of the House of Commons.
He is incensed by some of the political manoeuvres in the shape of public statements by Frank Field MP and his former nemesis Lord Myners.
But with some 11,000 people out of work and a £571m black hole in the pension scheme, the Parliamentarians clearly had a duty to go public with their thoughts. Green may regard it as inappropriate, but so is much that goes on inside Westminster.
Failing to show, as looked possible for 48 hours, would have condemned Green forever as a dissident. He would have placed himself in the same category as Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft (after the Cadbury takeover) and more recently Mike Ashley who felt they could treat elected officials with contempt. Green’s mood swings from blind rage to confidential whispers in a matter of moments. But if he keeps his cool he will have important stuff to say about the rapacious behaviour of advisers, the velvet glove treatment of Chappell and his own plans for restructuring the pension fund.
People familiar with Green’s ruthless track record will dismiss all of this as flak thrown up to divert from his own culpability in a burgeoning scandal. A proper timeline of events and a cheque for a big infusion of cash into the pension fund might have removed the stigma of dodgy dealings. Whatever happens now will be too little too late.
Swiss raspberry
FAREWELL Leeds, hello Altdorf. And where is Altdorf you might well ask? The Swiss town is home to Datwyler Holdings, which is taking advantage of the current high value of the Swiss franc to snaffle up UK Raspberry Pimaker Premier Farnell for £792m, including debt and the cost of funding the pension deficit.
There will be immediate gratification for Premier Farnell investors, including M&G which has a strategic 8.3pc stake.
The Leave campaign can say that in or out of the EU the UK is still a great place to do business. But there are bigger questions at stake. This deal may not be Microsoft buying LinkedIn. Britain has failed, so far, to create a digital giant similar to those that now dominate the US commercial landscape.
Too often, however, British tech and software companies find it easier to sell out to overseas buyers rather than pursue the hard grind of turning round a company that finds itself under pressure.
As the former chairman of Bupa, Premier Farnell’s chairman Val Gooding ought to know about healing yourself. It is only four months ago that the company recruited a new chief executive Jos Opdeweegh with the objective of perking up performance.
His feet were barely under the table before investment bankers UBS for the Swiss and Lazard for Premier Farnell were busy sewing up a deal with the support of 18.4pc of shareholders.
What a pity that UBS, as advisers to the putative British predator Electrocomponents, didn’t take the train from the City to Leeds instead. Each time the UK sells a high-tech company to an overseas buyer we lose a bit of our competitive edge globally. When Michael Heseltine looked at this for the coalition government, he came to the conclusion that small tech takeovers should be reviewed by the competition authorities for their economic impact.
It would be brilliant if the Competition & Markets Authority were to take up the cudgels. What is certain is that as a result of this deal the new owners are promising synergies – read cost reductions – of up to £50m by 2019.
That will almost certainly mean some jobs will have to go in Leeds. It is a no-brainer that the headquarters will move to Switzerland along with a chunk of corporation tax.
What a pity that Gooding and her board did not show the same gutsy resistance as namesake Premier Foods when it was stalked by America’s McCormick.
Instead, it is accepting a deal that is bad for the UK’s tech-base, bad for the Northern Powerhouse and bad for the Exchequer.
Euro vandalism
THE biggest surprise as Leave has edged into a lead in the polls is that the markets are refusing to behave like Russian football louts when confronted by tattooed English hooligans.
Instead, money has poured into the German bunds offering negative returns and out of French and other eurozone bonds where rates are spiking.
Could this be the start of a full-scale eurozone rout as in 2010-11?
If so, the Brexit pound could become a safe haven.