Sir Shifty’s wife ‘made £21m from the sale of BHS office’
SIR Philip Green’s wife Tina netted £21million through a complex property deal involving the sale of BHS’s head office, official accounts reveal.
As pressure mounted on the billionaire tycoon over the part he played in the department store’s collapse, he faced new questions about Lady Green’s role.
Lady Green is a major shareholder in her husband’s Arcadia Group company and was among the beneficiaries of £400million in dividends paid by BHS since 2000 – even though she had no official role in running the company.
Now it has emerged that an offshore firm she controls made £21.8million when Arcadia bought the BHS headquarters. The MP leading an investigation into BHS’s collapse said the transaction was like something from ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
Labour’s Frank Field indicated that Sir Philip would face questions about transfers of money out of his companies when he gave evidence to a parliamentary committee next week.
Yesterday, Liberal Democrat Tim Farron became the first political party leader to call for 64-year-old Sir Philip to be stripped of his knighthood over the BHS scandal.
He said: ‘He was given an honour by Tony Blair and today thousands of people are now out of work with BHS going under. The least that the Honours Forfeiture Committee could do is to look at this. I don’t like to personalise things but there is a clear case for him to lose his knighthood.’
New accounts filed by Arcadia, which owns Topshop, reveal the firm bought the BHS headquarters in central London from Lady Green’s company for last year.
The 60,000 sq ft office block with 1960s fixtures fronts on to Marylebone Road. It was owned by a company called Wilton Equity Ltd. This firm is registered in the British Virgin Islands and is controlled by Lady Green, who rented the property back to BHS. Wilton had purchased the BHS headquarters for £31.2 million in 2013 from insurance company Prudential.
When Arcadia paid £53million for the property, it represented a £21.8 million profit for Wilton.
Lady Green, who is based in Monte Carlo, effectively sold the BHS headquarters from one company she owns to another of which she is a major shareholder. A spokesman for Sir Philip would not explain why this transaction was made, but John Frenkel, a forensic accountant at Frenkels, said: ‘This is a tax-efficient way to get money out of the company to an offshore entity.’
Mr Field, chairman of the work and pensions select committee, told the Mail: ‘We are following the money and following the ownership. Where has the money gone now? This is all part of our investigation. Alice in Wonder £53 million land would remain confused about this transaction and the way they hold their companies. Why have this level of complexity? Will Sir Philip explain it when he comes on Wednesday?’
The transaction raises further questions about the transparency of the way the Greens run their business empire, which encompasses more than 70 subsidiary companies, including stores such as Dorothy Perkins and Burton. Arcadia employs an estimated 40,000 people and runs 3,000 outlets.
Arcadia is not listed on the stock exchange and does not have public shareholders, meaning it does not have to abide by the accounting standards of companies such as Marks & Spencer or Debenhams. Instead, it is run as a private company and has to provide only a minimum of information when it files annual accounts.
In turn, some of the Greens’ companies are based offshore, including Wilton. It means it is almost impossible for the public to see details of financial transactions. Nick Hood, business risk adviser of the opus Business Services Group, said: ‘This is the problem with these complex, opaque corporate structures which inevitably create suspicion.
‘Too often entrepreneurs lose sight of what belongs to them and what has to be kept ringfenced inside their company for the benefit of its creditors.’