Sir Shifty paid top staff £2m as BHS went bust
Bosses dubbed it the ‘Philip bonus’
SIR Philip Green paid out £2m to top staff at BHS as the retailer went into administration, it emerged last night.
The money – dubbed a ‘Philip bonus’– was shared among around 200 key employees at BHS headquarters, from top executives to buyers and receptionists.
They were told about the payment on the same day as 11,000 staff were informed they would lose their jobs.
Last night one MP said the latest revelations would be a ‘slap in the face’ for workers on the shop floor who received nothing and faced swingeing cuts to their pension.
A spokesman for the tycoon said the payments were ‘retention bonuses’ which were offered to persuade staff to stay as they looked for a buyer.
According to an investigation by BBC Panorama, the staff only received the money after no buyer was found.
They were told they would lose their bonus if BHS was sold or if they left the company.
The cash came from Green’s Arcadia group, which owns Topshop and Dorothy Perkins and used to own BHS. There was no obligation for Green to give any money to BHS staff, as it was more than a year since he had sold the chain for £1 to threetimes bankrupt former racing driver Dominic Chappell.
The sale proved to be a disaster as the 88- year- old chain plunged into administration. The final stores closed in August, with the loss of 11,000 jobs.
Last night sources close to Green( pictured with wife Tina) said he had agreed to ‘help out’ after being asked for the cash by Darren Topp, then chief executive of BHS, and the retailer’s administrators Duff & Phelps.
Insiders said Green was ‘really keen’ to save the business and was anxious to prevent top staff jumping ship. But last night MPs described the payment as ‘odd’ and pointed out the billionaire had still not come to the rescue of the BHS pension scheme, despite making a promise almost four months ago to ‘sort it’.
Around 22,000 former and current staff face cuts to their pensions unless the tycoon, dubbed Sir Shifty by his critics, steps in. A damning report by MPs in July accused Green of systematically ‘plundering’ BHS by extracting hundreds of millions of pounds in dividends from the company, while allowing a giant black hole to build up in the pension scheme.
In recent months MPs have issued fresh calls for the tycoon to be stripped of his knighthood.
Richard Fuller, a Tory member of the commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, which investigated the downfall of BHS, said: ‘This payment does look odd. Anyone at BHS who has given years of loyal service and been left high and dry by Sir Philip will take this as a slap in the face, and a sign that their work did not matter while the work of executives at HQ did.’
He added: ‘Sir Philip’s responsibility now is to all the members of the BHS pension scheme, which he has not settled. The clock is ticking.’
A spokesman for Green said: ‘The negotiations with the Pensions Regulator are continuing. Sir Philip has made his determination to resolve the pensions issue repeatedly clear.’