Its parent company, Taveta, had been run, it found, “as a personal fiefdom by a single dominant individual”.
Given that Taveta is owned by just the one person this is, we might think, how it should be run, no?
Its parent company, Taveta, had been run, it found, “as a personal fiefdom by a single dominant individual”.
Given that Taveta is owned by just the one person this is, we might think, how it should be run, no?
The Guardian’s argument makes no sense. Green owned multiple companies whose business model was swiftly being destroyed by online shopping, intense competition from Primark, and changing consumer tastes. He chose to run them into the ground rather than waste his (admittedly ample) fortune on a futile attempt to reverse those trends. What else was he supposed to do?
“What else was he supposed to do?”
Given the average Guardianista: Employ twice as many people at double the salary with a 12 wk/yr holiday scheme, a 3 day working week, guaranteeing full Equality and Diversity, a 3 year fully paid m/paternity leave, paying 150% tax over gross turnover while paying personal penance of 20% of his estimated worth annually for being an Evil Capitalist Pig.
It may be owned by one person. It may be his property. But as some community organiser said once, he did not build that. It is community property.
Community property like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzUPG8olnO0
Grikath,
And how’s that working out for John Lewis lately?
Disastrously..
But when have the Guardianistas ever let themselves be held back by this thing called “Reality”?
And like the Spud… Any disaster resulting from following their Inspired Mandate is the sole result of Incorrect/Incomplete Implementation. Because they cannot possibly be wrong…
There’s a lot of sniffiness all round about Green. Even in allegedly right-wing outlets like the Terriblegraph and Spectator. Many of the snobby, dripping-wet contributors don’t like a permatanned Jewish wideboy who clearly enjoys his money.
He could have adapted better to the new ‘omni-channel’ retail environment – Next has done so – but he’s scarcely the only one who’s failed in that regard. And he can’t be held responsible for the government fucking the economy.
” And he can’t be held responsible for the government fucking the economy.”
Nor fixing interest rates at artificially low levels, thus making pension fund returns drop catastrophically. I’d hazard a guess that the ‘hole’ in the Arcadia pension fund is nothing to do with lack of contributions from Mr Green (or his companies) and everything to do with the drop in interest rates since 2007. And whose fault is that?
MC December 6, 2020 at 2:27 pm – “Many of the snobby, dripping-wet contributors don’t like a permatanned Jewish wideboy who clearly enjoys his money.”
Oh come on. You do not have to be snobby or dripping-wet or even a contributor to the Speccie to dislike permatanned Jewish wideboys like Phil Green. He is a shit. And he looks like a shit who has a habit of taking large amounts of cash out of his companies just before they go belly up and cheat everyone else of their pensions.
Sure, low interest rates do not help. But I bet neither does paying himself unexpected large dividends.
Nothing wrong in being a shit. Especially a very rich shit. Business is not cricket.
“Sure, low interest rates do not help”
I’d wager that if interest rates were the same today that they were in 2006 (around 5%) then the Arcadia pension fund would be in surplus.
And of course you can add in the cumulative effect of the Gordon Brown pension fund raid of 1997, which runs into the hundreds of billions over the last 20+ years. I suppose thats the responsibility of Phillip Green as well?