Sir Philip Green vs Select committee
Discussion
I'm thinking about this and I'm a bit on the fence on this one.
I assure you it's not schadenfreude.
Sir PG has really set himself up for this.
He's chosen to rub the City and the media the wrong way and seems content to play the pantomime villain.
He is not stupid so he knew or at least surmised that the fall out of the BHS debacle would be controversial.
He chose to get stroppy with the journalists,that's his style.
He could have welcomed them on his yacht,told them he was devasted by the closure of BHS,need a break to clear his head and was in discussion with his advisers.
To be trite....You reap what you sow.
I assure you it's not schadenfreude.
Sir PG has really set himself up for this.
He's chosen to rub the City and the media the wrong way and seems content to play the pantomime villain.
He is not stupid so he knew or at least surmised that the fall out of the BHS debacle would be controversial.
He chose to get stroppy with the journalists,that's his style.
He could have welcomed them on his yacht,told them he was devasted by the closure of BHS,need a break to clear his head and was in discussion with his advisers.
To be trite....You reap what you sow.
Oceanic said:
It is the journalistic (if you can call it that) style that is pathetic, just turning up on spec and demanding answers is not going to yield anything much.
I am no big fan of Green, but I do not like this kind of doorstepping, additionally that it is now their lead story this morning! Is this even news?
Doorstepping has been a normal function of journalism for decades. Here we have a bloke who has cost thousands £thousands annually so is very much in the frame. I would assume, and would bet, that the press have been requesting interviews with the bloke since the committee meeting but he has been unavailable. I am no big fan of Green, but I do not like this kind of doorstepping, additionally that it is now their lead story this morning! Is this even news?
Out of all the forms of doorstepping, I think this is the most excusable. We've got someone who, apparently, can't be bothered to do what he'd said he would do. The promise sounded great, the deliver not so good.
The bloke hasn't delivered on his promise. He probably won't.
I wonder how many shoplifters were prosecuted for lifting minor property from his stores. He, it would appear, took £millions.
Derek Smith said:
Doorstepping has been a normal function of journalism for decades. Here we have a bloke who has cost thousands £thousands annually so is very much in the frame. I would assume, and would bet, that the press have been requesting interviews with the bloke since the committee meeting but he has been unavailable.
Out of all the forms of doorstepping, I think this is the most excusable. We've got someone who, apparently, can't be bothered to do what he'd said he would do. The promise sounded great, the deliver not so good.
The bloke hasn't delivered on his promise. He probably won't.
I wonder how many shoplifters were prosecuted for lifting minor property from his stores. He, it would appear, took £millions.
Shoplifting is against the law, taking dividends from a company you own is not.Out of all the forms of doorstepping, I think this is the most excusable. We've got someone who, apparently, can't be bothered to do what he'd said he would do. The promise sounded great, the deliver not so good.
The bloke hasn't delivered on his promise. He probably won't.
I wonder how many shoplifters were prosecuted for lifting minor property from his stores. He, it would appear, took £millions.
Do you have any evidence of criminal behaviour? If so, then of course he should be subject to the full force of the law.
sidicks said:
Do you have any evidence of criminal behaviour? If so, then of course he should be subject to the full force of the law.
The odd thing here is that he instantly offered £80m at first and then committed to sorting the pension deficit.If he did nothing wrong, was this just out of goodwill?
walm said:
The odd thing here is that he instantly offered £80m at first and then committed to sorting the pension deficit.
If he did nothing wrong, was this just out of goodwill?
Goodwill and PR presumably.If he did nothing wrong, was this just out of goodwill?
It's certainly not going to get him off any charges if he's proven to have acted illegally!
Derek Smith said:
Doorstepping has been a normal function of journalism for decades. Here we have a bloke who has cost thousands £thousands annually so is very much in the frame. I would assume, and would bet, that the press have been requesting interviews with the bloke since the committee meeting but he has been unavailable.
Out of all the forms of doorstepping, I think this is the most excusable. We've got someone who, apparently, can't be bothered to do what he'd said he would do. The promise sounded great, the deliver not so good.
The bloke hasn't delivered on his promise. He probably won't.
I wonder how many shoplifters were prosecuted for lifting minor property from his stores. He, it would appear, took £millions.
Which laws did he actually break? Out of all the forms of doorstepping, I think this is the most excusable. We've got someone who, apparently, can't be bothered to do what he'd said he would do. The promise sounded great, the deliver not so good.
The bloke hasn't delivered on his promise. He probably won't.
I wonder how many shoplifters were prosecuted for lifting minor property from his stores. He, it would appear, took £millions.
sidicks said:
Goodwill and PR presumably.
It's certainly not going to get him off any charges if he's proven to have acted illegally!
Maybe.It's certainly not going to get him off any charges if he's proven to have acted illegally!
But if the pensioners are made whole and prosecuting him would cost millions (which it would) there is going to be a lot less pressure than if he sits on a yacht doing nothing.
Oceanic said:
Which laws did he actually break?
And the point of the question is?The fact that laws intended to protect small businesses are not fit for purpose for larger companies is the problem.
I put money into a pension from the age of 16 to 28. It was taken by my bosses. Taken. They told us it would be put into a fund that was untouchable by them but, we discovered, that was a lie. My union took them to court and we were told there was no law broken.
Yet my bosses knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't stupid. I was for trusting them and the law to look after me. I might have doorstepped them in an attempt to humiliate them but they'd moved to Canada.
The fact that Green didn't break the law is, of course, the problem.
Derek Smith said:
I put money into a pension from the age of 16 to 28. It was taken by my bosses. Taken. They told us it would be put into a fund that was untouchable by them but, we discovered, that was a lie. My union took them to court and we were told there was no law broken.
Sorry to hear that, Derek.I believe the law has now been changed so that this cannot happen again?
Derek Smith said:
And the point of the question is?
The fact that laws intended to protect small businesses are not fit for purpose for larger companies is the problem.
I put money into a pension from the age of 16 to 28. It was taken by my bosses. Taken. They told us it would be put into a fund that was untouchable by them but, we discovered, that was a lie. My union took them to court and we were told there was no law broken.
Which scheme was this - it sounds like a blatant case of fraud.The fact that laws intended to protect small businesses are not fit for purpose for larger companies is the problem.
I put money into a pension from the age of 16 to 28. It was taken by my bosses. Taken. They told us it would be put into a fund that was untouchable by them but, we discovered, that was a lie. My union took them to court and we were told there was no law broken.
Derek Smith said:
Yet my bosses knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't stupid. I was for trusting them and the law to look after me. I might have doorstepped them in an attempt to humiliate them but they'd moved to Canada.
The fact that Green didn't break the law is, of course, the problem.
The fact you don't understand what he has or has not done appears to be the problem!!The fact that Green didn't break the law is, of course, the problem.
Derek Smith said:
The fact that laws intended to protect small businesses are not fit for purpose for larger companies is the problem.
Not sure how on earth you reach that conclusion.There are plenty of laws for both big and small.
I feel like the problem here is that it was a private company/companies so he had far less scrutiny or transparency than those who report every three months.
He sold that company for £1.
And when that happens you sell the assets AND the debt, which includes the pension.
The real question is whether he lined up an obvious patsy who he conned into buying something that was very far from as described!!
BlackLabel said:
I remember watching that and I thought oh my god he's got some balls, I watched a bit more and thought who the hell is running this show Green or the other monkeys. I Did seem as if Green had no respect for them or the process.
sidicks said:
Derek Smith said:
Yet my bosses knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't stupid. I was for trusting them and the law to look after me. I might have doorstepped them in an attempt to humiliate them but they'd moved to Canada.
The fact that Green didn't break the law is, of course, the problem.
The fact you don't understand what he has or has not done appears to be the problem!!The fact that Green didn't break the law is, of course, the problem.
This
Green has done absolutely nothing wrong, BHS was going into administration whether he sold it or not and with exactly the same consequences as now
As far as I'm aware no BHS liabilities were guaranteed by the parent group so there was nothing beyond reputation risk stopping him from calling in the receivers himself.
The dividends were taken 10 years ago! - the pension scheme was in surplus for a number of years following the payment of the dividends and the auditors were happy to sign it off as a going concern.
People need to realise that in a free market companies do fail, even those which employ 11k people, especially if they are no longer offering what the market needs. Phillip Green has himself done nothing wrong at all, legally or morally.
PAULJ5555 said:
I remember watching that and I thought oh my god he's got some balls, I watched a bit more and thought who the hell is running this show Green or the other monkeys. I Did seem as if Green had no respect for them or the process.
I think Green was pretty knarked by one of the politicians who was making a lot of public rumblings about Green before he had his day in "court" so to speak, I think I would have felt the same if I was going before a public body and they had already had their swords out for me publically. A lack of impartiality as it seemed. kiethton said:
People need to realise that in a free market companies do fail, even those which employ 11k people, especially if they are no longer offering what the market needs. Phillip Green has himself done nothing wrong at all, legally or morally.
So why did he not invest heavily in the company to change it's offering instead of siphoning everything he could to his leathery old wife in Monaco?I'm sure such a brilliant businessman and retail guru like him would have had no trouble doing that and he could then have sold the company for billions with a clear conscience rather then flog it for £1 to someone he knew was basically a clueless fall guy.
Green's just a greasy wide boy done well (financially anyway)
He bought BHS for 200 million, took 580 million out, and sold it for £1. He just knows how to play clever games, not sure why anyone would defend him or think that the way he behaves is ok. Just because he didn't break any law doesn't make it ok. Was it alright that comedians played legal games to avoid paying tax before they were all caught out? Most people would say no.
kiethton said:
People need to realise that in a free market companies do fail, even those which employ 11k people, especially if they are no longer offering what the market needs. Phillip Green has himself done nothing wrong at all, legally or morally.
It was pleasing to hear Green telling that doorstepping Sky twunt to shut up and go away, he even managed to constrain his forms of liguisitic expression for a while but an expletive (undeleted) crept in eventually iirc. 'Mind my yacht little boy'.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff