Philip Green’s wife splashed out on string of lavish homes as BHS teetered
... including one for their daughter
SIR Philip Green’s wife secretly splashed out millions of pounds on UK properties using offshore shell companies as BHS teetered on the brink of collapse, it has been alleged.
An explosive cache of leaked documents claimed to expose how Tina Green is the ultimate owner of 47 companies based in the British Virgin Islands tax haven.
She expanded her property portfolio as the BHS department store previously owned by Sir Philip’s Arcadia Group was beginning to fold, according to the leak.
The trove of papers has led to renewed calls for laws to protect against secretive ownership of UK real estate after the hidden wealth of some of the world’s richest and most powerful was exposed.
The documents, known as the Pandora Papers, purport to show how some political donors and foreign politicians accused of corruption secretly own British property worth £4billion.
Lady Green, 72, allegedly used offshore companies to purchase properties in some of London’s most up-market neighbourhoods after BHS was sold to serial bankrupt Dominic Chappell for just £1 in 2015.
The retailer collapsed a year later, leading to 11,000 job losses, triggering a long-running row between Sir Philip and regulators about who would plug a £571million hole in its retirement scheme.
Shortly after the sale of BHS to Chappell, the Greens reportedly bought a flat in Mayfair for just under £5million.
Lady Green, the official owner of the family’s retail interests, then paid £15million for a luxury maisonette close to the Dorchester Hotel in the same area in 2016.
She is said to have bought a home for the couple’s daughter Chloe close to Buckingham Palace for more than £10million in the same year.
And the portfolio also included a £7million Belgravia flat, the Pandora Papers revealed, though it is not thought that this apartment was bought in 2016.
Lady Green, who lives in Monaco, also had an anonymous stake in a venture that bought commercial property in west London in 2011, which was sold four years later for a £375million profit.
Although there is nothing illegal about the purchases or her actions, her identity as the ultimate owner of the properties was obscured by the use of offshore companies. Sir Philip told the Daily Mail last night: ‘I’m not involved in it. Let me to try and make it very uncomplicated – I have not owned or do not own and have never owned any property in any offshore vehicles.’ The 69-year-old businessthat man pointed out that his wife’s use of off-shore companies was legal, adding: ‘I’m not getting involved in this.’
Lawyers for Sir Philip and Lady Green, who took a record £1.2billion tax-free dividend from the Arcadia retail empire in 2005, said the matters were private. Arcadia, which owned brands such as Topshop, went into administration last year with a £510million pension deficit after the pandemic was said to have severely hit its sales.
Earlier this year it emerged that Aldsworth Equity, a British Virgin Islands-registered company controlled by Lady Green, was paid £50million by administrators – causing anger among former staff.
In 2016, it was reported she was behind a British Virgin Islands company that spent more than £10million on a four-storey townhouse in Belgravia for Chloe.
Lady Green’s alleged dealings were revealed in a cache of 11.9million files that have shone a light on the financial dealings of world leaders, business leaders and public officials. The Pandora Papers were leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in the US and shared with media bodies across the world. Investigations revealed the owners of 1,500 properties in the UK, often in London’s most expensive postcodes.
The Government has promised to increase the transparency concerning foreign ownership of UK property, with around £170billion thought to held overseas.
There are concerns that the use of offshore entities can be used for tax avoidance and money laundering by evading the detection of HMRC and other law enforcement bodies. However there is no suggestion that Lady Green has done anything of this nature.
‘Let me make it uncomplicated’