The family of Sir Philip Green are in line to pocket £50m from the sale of Topshop, as 10,000 Arcadia pension fund members face a haircut on their savings after his empire collapsed last month.
Administrators from Deloitte are auctioning Arcadia’s brands, which also include Miss Selfridge and Burton. With an estimated value of at least £200m, Topshop is easily the most valuable component.
Aldsworth Equity, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and controlled by Green’s wife Tina, lent £50m to Topshop in March last year, secured against its state-of-the-art warehouse in Daventry, Northamptonshire, which is owned by the Topshop/Topman operating company.
Secured creditors get paid first. Just what is capitalism coming to?
A debt owing to Tina Green is to be repaid.
That is “deserving” of a headline!?!
The morality espoused by current journalists “what’s yours is mine, what’s mine I’m keeping”
I know that people around here think any criticism of the Greens for being spivs and just-this-side-of-the-line-not-fraudsters, is inherently anti-semitic, but is it any surprise that a spiv with a history of looting his companies’ assets should loot his companies assets?
Spivs will spiv. That is their thing. Does anyone in their right mind think that this is a legitimate business deal?
For years all I knew about Green was that he was the slimy looking chap who cropped up pawing famous models in photos in the papers. No anti-semitism there: quite apart from being brought up to despise anti-semitism, I had no idea that he was a Jew.
As for his business antics, “spiv” seems fair. But I do wonder why anyone does business with a spiv; do they hope to outspiv him?
I am awaiting a definition of “looting his companies’ assets” that includes lending them 50M pounds. These were funds from Tina Green (or even Sir Phil) that were obviously extracted from the group prior to March 2019 (or came from other sources altogether) and were (re)invested in the group. I don’t see anything reprehensible about a secured lender expecting to be repaid (even in priority to unsecured creditors), SMFS, and I don’t see on what basis you claim it to be illegitimate – other than not liking the couple. If this was a bank demanding payment over a mortgage default would it be so offensive?
I don’t see anything wrong with a secured lender being repaid either. But there is an obvious conflict of interest when the management borrows from itself and ends up with the major assets.
Was this a real transaction? Who knows. It is not as if it was done in a transparent open business environment. It is a related parties transaction in an opaque off shore tax haven. How can that not stink?
I think that the loan was notional. It is just a way of Green to transfer the companies’ assets to his wife. Given that it is Green I don’t think he deserves an assumption of innocence.
SMFS, I suspect you’d argue the exact opposite if eighteen months ago the group had needed finance and Phil and Tina didn’t provide funds and the group became insolvent. The receiver seems to think the loan is legitimate, or they would be contesting the payment – and they are in a better position to know than either you or I.