Why is there not more anger over Phillip Green?

No, he didn't. He could not take anything out of the pension fund, and it was controlled independently. That's simply false.

BHS hasn't paid any dividends since 2004. It last made a profit in 2008. When he took dividends, it was not suffering dire problems - which is a perfectly normal thing to do.



So it seems he's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.



Except of course that there's very little suggestion he did well out of this. It would have benefited him to have a successful BHS - but it wasn't. Business ventures sometimes fail and BHS had its day long before he arrived on the scene. Similar stores like C&A, Debenhams and even M&S have all had their share of problems.

i don't know how, and i'm no pensions expert, but it seems what he did was legal, if morally questionable.

as far as i'm concerned the government should not call off an inquiry in exchange for the £300m but fully investigate what went wrong, if there is any blameworthy behaviour and what can be done in future to prevent this sort of pension raiding happening.

as recently as 2008 the pension fund was in £3.4m of surplus. it was after this that the deficit started ballooning. the £400m of dividends paid to green were paid years before this.

the reality is that this is not as simple as 'green raided the pension fund' to pay himself huge dividends. people like to simplify things they do not understand but that cannot be done here. green has also failed dismally in his PR, in contrast to someone like mike ashley. this fuels further resentment towards him.

If he's done nothing illegal then why is he trying to pay us to drop all investigations? Someone who's willing to pay £300 million for an investigation to be dropped certainly seems like someone with something to hide.

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maybe because this episode is doing huge damage to his reputation and image. he wants an end to this ASAP, and is willing to pay money to achieve this.

he clearly sold the business to someone who had no business nous - a big mistake. not illegal though.

the pension business is effectively a separate entity and only started to accelerate its deficit from 2008 onwards. the huge dividends were paid years before this.

the business ultimately failed (in part) through a chronic lack of investment and the business being starved of cash, some of which went to green in the form of dividends. not illegal.

BTW, of course people who break the law must be punished in accordance with the law. its just that you must specifically point out which laws he has broken....

[Even if isn't illegal it doesn't mean there shouldn't be outrage over someone who has behaved like this and cost thousands of workers a huge amount of money while he swans about in his new yacht.
He took £400 million out the business and watched it's pension deficit soar.

He took 400 Million while thousands of workers have lost their jobs and/ or pensions. Is that acceptable? Now he's trying to blackmail our government and you still give him the benefit of the doubt.

How did he take money out of BHS at the point it was going "belly up"?

The company was profitable when he took dividends. There has not been a single dividend payment since 2004. It was last returning a profit in 2008.




I'm not sure what you think taking a dividend and a rising pension deficit have to do with one-another.



Well, he took £400m in dividend payments, which is really what a business owner generally does, 12 years before it went bust. It cost him £200m and has made cumulative losses quite a bit over £400m. If you think this has been a great earner for him, you're quite wrong.

I'd be more convinced of this "unacceptable face of capitalism" nonsense if its proponents didn't seem so ludicrously ill-informed.

And do you really think that he should be able to demand that an investigation into any wrote going is dropped by way of a bribe? The fact that he's only willing to pay back the money on the condition that all investigations are dropped raises serious questions. If he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear.

The benefit of doubt that some are willing to give the ultra wealthy is astonishing.

It would be nice to see all of the major offshore tax dodgers brought back to Britain for a proper settling of accounts. For a start, no access to our markets unless you pay your taxes here. We could start with Richard Branson.

Answer me this if nothing else and give me a straight answer please. If there is suspicion that someone has committed a criminal offence, should that person be allowed to bribe the government to drop the investigation?

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He took £400 million from the company. There are laws against taking such huge dividends when a company has such debts to pay off.

After taking such a huge amount out the pension pot accrued a large deficit which he refused to fill. He then sold the company to a known serial bankrupter.

The end result is that while 11, 000 staff have lost their jobs and 22,000 had their pensions seriously affected, Phillip Green was using the £400 million he took from the business to pay for three yachts rather than reinvesting back into the business to plug the huge debts that the withdrawal of the money caused.

He's currently on a holiday yacht, his former workers have lost their jobs and pensions. Is that acceptable?

And to top it all off he is trying to blackmail our government into dropping criminal investigations.
Answer me this if nothing else and give me a straight answer please. If there is suspicion that someone has committed a criminal offence, should that person be allowed to bribe the government to drop the investigation?

I personally don't want to live in a country that allows individuals to buy criminal immunity. Do you?

The very fact he is trying to buy criminal immunity is a sign that he has something to hide.


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There are laws preventing taking dividends when the company has such huge debts. Especially with regards to the company's legal pension commitments.

Someone willing to pay to have criminal investigations dropped looks like someone with something to hide. Do you think it's acceptable that wealthy people should be able to bribe our government to drop criminal investigations? Imagine if someone who has committed benefit fraud tried to bribe our government not to investigate...

Even if isn't illegal it doesn't mean there shouldn't be outrage over someone who has behaved like this and cost thousands of workers a huge amount of money while he swans about in his new yacht.
He took £400 million out the business and watched it's pension deficit soar. He then sold the business to a serial bankrupter.

He took 400 Million while thousands of workers have lost their jobs and/ or pensions. Is that acceptable? Now he's trying to blackmail our government and you still give him the benefit of the doubt.

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Good for him. It's his money, he can do whatever he wants with it.

Whilst I would usually advocate this position, in this case it is very dubious ground to be raiding a pension fund.

Asset stripping is absolutely fine but a pension fund is meant to be a legal entity separate from the company. I'm unsure on the specifics but I thought you weren't allowed to touch this money except for meeting your pension's obligations.

The law allows companies to borrow money from their pension funds by agreement of the trustees. Sometimes these trustees are compliant because they were company appointees and sometimes they simply don't understand what is going on. There have been some terrible cases in the past where fat cat businessmen 'borrowed' (eg, stole) from the pension fund knowing that the company would soon go bust or was already insolvent. This appears to be one of those cases.

Phillip Green took over BHS with the intention of asset stripping the company. He raided around an estimated 400-600 million from the pension pot.

As a result 22,000 individuals have lost their pension, while Green used the money to buy yachts.

When he was being investigated by our Parliament he refused to comply unless certain MPs that he disliked such as Frank Field were taken off the committee.

Now he is 'offering' to pay back some money into the pension pot but has tried to bribe the government by claiming he will only give money back if the investigation on him is dropped.


His actions cost thousands of ordinary workers their pension which they had been accruing for years.

Yet where is the outrage?

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The law allows companies to borrow money from their pension funds by agreement of the trustees. Sometimes these trustees are compliant because they were company appointees and sometimes they simply don't understand what is going on. There have been some terrible cases in the past where fat cat businessmen 'borrowed' (eg, stole) from the pension fund knowing that the company would soon go bust or was already insolvent. This appears to be one of those cases.

He took the money between 02-04 when it was profitable and in surplus. The first deficit was in 05 and the first loss in 09.

He may have seen that he was losing to competitors but to suggest he then waited another 8 years to sell it while absorbing losses deliberately is ludicrous. If he thought the firm was about to dye, he'd have sold it.