BHS: Green says working on BHS pension fund deal

Former BHS owner Philip Green said he had commissioned a plan to help pension scheme members of the failed high street chain, although he claimed he did not know the fund had a large deficit until 2012.

Under intense six-hour scrutiny before a parliamentary select committee, an aggressive Green said he was sorry for the collapse of BHS which had put up to 11,000 jobs at risk, and admitted that there had been some “stupid, stupid idiotic mistakes” made over the pension fund. "We will find a solution," he added.

Collapse of the iconic chain led to it going into administration in April, with winding up proceedings starting in June. The pension fund has a £571m black hole, which could result in members seeing their already meagre earnings reduced.

Kindling hopes of a better rescue plan than that currently available under the industry-funded Pension Protection Fund, Green said accountancy firm Deloitte was “a week away” from presenting a rescue plan on the pension scheme, without giving any details.

“I‘m happy to apologise, I should have been involved earlier. For whatever reason I wasn’t, but I should have been involved earlier,” Green said before a joint hearing of the Work & Pensions and Business select committees. Green sold the company for £1 to three-time bankrupt Dominic Chappell in 2015.

Noticably irritated and aggressive throughout the extraordinary session, the billionaire retail tycoon managed to spill a cup of water, demanded a member of the committee “stop staring” at him and referred to Labour MP Karen Buck as “your lady” when talking to joint chair Frank Field among repeated protests that he was being bullied by the cross-party group of MPs.

Green maintained that BHS had been very conservatively financed when questioned on the level of dividends he took from the company over his 15 year ownership.

The committee heard Green claim that advisers to Chappell, the law firm Olswang and accountants Grant Thornton “did not know him from a hole in the wall”, despite giving him the appearance of credibility ahead of the deal.

“We one million percent would not have done business with him,” if Green's own advisers had sensed that Chappell would not be a suitable buyer for BHS, he said.

“Unfortunately, we found the wrong guy,” he added. “We think we went through a process, good bad or indifferent, I took personally comfort from Grant Thornton and Olswang.”

“Nobody asked how they came to act for him.”

The committee also heard that Green had not met Chappell before the deal and he also blamed the pensions regulator for failing to contact him to come to a deal on the fund deficit.

Later in the marathon session, Green refuted evidence given by Chappell last week that he forced BHS into administration by calling in a £35m loan. He, in turn, said Chappell had breached not to take money out of BHS when held back £7m from a £32m property deal.

Iain Wright, chair of the Business committee, clashed repeatedly with Green over the involvement of Sport's Direct owner and fellow billionaire Mike Ashley, who Chappell tried to enlist to buy the teetering business.

Asked whether he had any contact with Ashley in days before BHS was placed into administration, Green said he had not and was unaware that a deal was being discussed.

Responding, Wright produced a letter from Ashley saying the two men had made contact, leading Green to admit that he had spoken to his fellow retailer “a few times” during the preceding weekend.