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I dunno, I think not even

Sir Philip Green is trying to end the threat of legal action against him over the sale of BHS by writing a cheque for more than £300 million that would help to plug a hole in the company’s pension fund.

The problem with these sorts of stories is that you never know who is doing the briefing.

Is this Green saying that everyone should shut up, he’ll sort it out? Or is it someone putting pressure on Green to up his offer?

And what if, when interest rates rise again? And large parts of that funding deficit disappear. Does he get his settlement back again?

11 thoughts on “I dunno, I think not even”

  1. I think what it shows is that disagreements between politicians and business elites are settled in the most opaque and arbitrary manner imaginable, akin to something you’d see between two feuding criminal gangs. Whatever happened to the rule of law and the legal system?

  2. I suspect Tim’s tongue-in-cheek money-back option is a no-no. However, £300m is probably the least Green can do to deflect his critics and forestall legal action.

  3. Leave “Sir” Phil alone: the UK’s brand of yobbocapitalism is all that stands between us and the Red Terror of pre Mrs Thatcher years when there was full employment, new towns, and people could move to London for work, much of it facilitated by Harold “You’ve never had it so good ” MacMillan who called himself a Conservative! Keep the faith! Can’t you see the good its doing!

  4. Why is it anything to do with “Sir” Phil? The owner of the company is his moll, is it not? She should stump up if anyone should.

  5. I reckon the Greens are just stringing this out until they can donate the winnings from the actions against those who have mendaciously defamed them. At this point they could bankrupt just about every paper in the country, for starters, as well as taking huge sums from the Beeb.

  6. So we are suggesting that Lady Green should write a cheque for “more than £300 million”, for a company that had a pension scheme deficit as follows at the following dates (August year end), and less than this if reported net of deferred tax:

    2014: -£139m (-£111m net of deferred tax)

    2013: -£137m

    2012: -£95m

    2011: -£105m

    2010: -£162m

    Information taken from Companies Hosue (note 22 of the August 2014 accounts):

    https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00229606/filing-history?page=1

    As we know, the pension fund was just in surplus in 2008 before the crash.

    We don’t know what the deficit was at March 2015 (date of sale / transfer to Chappell), but what am I missing here?

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