Sir Philip Green vs Select committee

[Murcielago_Boy]

Dividends are paid out of profits AND/OR cumulative retained profits built up over the years. PG was within his legal rights to pay these to the shareholders (his family).
There was no legal obligation to top up pension fund despite the pathetic protestations of the Trustees and all the other twerps asleep at the wheel. Sooo....

1st Conclusion: No **LEGAL** wrongdoing
2nd Conclusion: Law ought to change to protect pensioners.
3rd Conclusion: PG put himself above the pensioners which is *fine (*see conclusion 1).

Which leads to question: Do you think he offloaded the business to just **anyone** to get out of the pension liability thereby additionally torching the jobs of the BHS staff too?
Doesn't look good does it?

And none of it is illegal.
Which means Murph355 is dead right. This whole thing has been a damn waste of time.

[FredClogs]

Murph7355 said:

FredClogs said:

I'm no psychologist but...

Here comes the psychologist's conclusion...

FredClogs said:

....the man quite clearly has some kind of narcissistic personality disorder and paranoid delusions.
...

BOOM!

(Not having a dig - I simply find this sort of sentence amusing "I don't mean to be rude..." etc).

I'm here to amuse, I've never let my ignorance stand in the way of giving conclusive opinions.

[wc98]

oyster said:

sidicks said:

wc98 said:

a few more words in your explanation of why would be handy.business gets 300 odd million of wage subsidy for employees while removing 400 million. numbers not my strong point, but it will take osbornesque levels of economics to alter my impression of that.

If you don't understand that benefits paid to employees are not the same as cash paid to a business, then I'm not sure where to go from here.

wc98 I get your sentiment but you're linking 2 things which aren't linked.

You're somehow saying that tax credits are a wage top-up - they're not. They are a benefit paid by government, they aren't in place of wages. If the government didn't pay the £397m in tax credits to BHS employees (as you mention), then Green could still take the £400m dividend.

It's different money from different sources.

thanks for that, far better than a one word reply. i know what you are saying, but if the employees had been paid what government determine to be the minimum those employees need to get by (hence benefit top up to wages) by the company there would have been 300 odd million less for him to remove.

looking at it your way, a company could pay employees 2 pence an hour , let government make up the shortfall , and make huge profits at the expense of the tax payer. bit of an extreme example but that is how it looks to me.

[wc98]

Murcielago_Boy said:

Dividends are paid out of profits AND/OR cumulative retained profits built up over the years. PG was within his legal rights to pay these to the shareholders (his family).
There was no legal obligation to top up pension fund despite the pathetic protestations of the Trustees and all the other twerps asleep at the wheel. Sooo....

1st Conclusion: No **LEGAL** wrongdoing
2nd Conclusion: Law ought to change to protect pensioners.
3rd Conclusion: PG put himself above the pensioners which is *fine (*see conclusion 1).

Which leads to question: Do you think he offloaded the business to just **anyone** to get out of the pension liability thereby additionally torching the jobs of the BHS staff too?
Doesn't look good does it?

And none of it is illegal.
Which means Murph355 is dead right. This whole thing has been a damn waste of time.

this i do tend to agree with. as for pensions, i think the public have had enough examples over the years to be able to determine if you want a reasonable pension, do something about it yourself . relying on the business that employs you is a strategy fraught with problems.

[FredClogs]

wc98 said:

this i do tend to agree with. as for pensions, i think the public have had enough examples over the years to be able to determine if you want a reasonable pension, do something about it yourself . relying on the business that employs you is a strategy fraught with problems.

Crikey... My pension plan is to stay healthy and strong enough to be able to become an international cat thief, I will concentrate my efforts on robbing the fine apartments and garages of Monaco.

[sidicks]

wc98 said:

thanks for that, far better than a one word reply. i know what you are saying, but if the employees had been paid what government determine to be the minimum those employees need to get by (hence benefit top up to wages) by the company there would have been 300 odd million less for him to remove.

If the government determine that is the minimum amount to 'get by', why do they tax those earnings...?

wc98 said:

looking at it your way, a company could pay employees 2 pence an hour , let government make up the shortfall , and make huge profits at the expense of the tax payer. bit of an extreme example but that is how it looks to me.

Except it can't, because we have the minimum wage.

And if the wages required are too high, the company simply won't employ people.

Edited by sidicks on Thursday 16th June 11:54

[sidicks]

wc98 said:

this i do tend to agree with. as for pensions, i think the public have had enough examples over the years to be able to determine if you want a reasonable pension, do something about it yourself . relying on the business that employs you is a strategy fraught with problems.

What examples?

[kurt535]

sidicks said:

wc98 said:

thanks for that, far better than a one word reply. i know what you are saying, but if the employees had been paid what government determine to be the minimum those employees need to get by (hence benefit top up to wages) by the company there would have been 300 odd million less for him to remove.

If the government determine that is the minimum amount to 'get by', why do they tax those earnings...?

wc98 said:

looking at it your way, a company could pay employees 2 pence an hour , let government make up the shortfall , and make huge profits at the expense of the tax payer. bit of an extreme example but that is how it looks to me.

Except it can't, because we have the minimum wage.

have a look at apprenticeship 'contracts'. modern day form of YTS scheme. Deplorable scheme with tiny amount of companies actually taking up the trainee at the end of it. Big players in the market - think village people song - peddle apprenticeships as they make good cash out of them from the government.

[Murph7355]

kurt535 said:

have a look at apprenticeship 'contracts'. modern day form of YTS scheme. Deplorable scheme with tiny amount of companies actually taking up the trainee at the end of it. Big players in the market - think village people song - peddle apprenticeships as they make good cash out of them from the government.

Don't blame the player...

[motco]

At least more people now have a good idea of what sort of man Green is and can choose to avoid his businesses if they wish.

[wc98]

sidicks said:

What examples?

the many where company pension schemes either folded or were underfunded, leaving the tax payer with the bill yet again.
take your pick http://citywire.co.uk/money/10-pensions-scandals-t...

[J4CKO]

motco said:

At least more people now have a good idea of what sort of man Green is and can choose to avoid his businesses if they wish.

Chubby Brown wrote a song about him....

[sidicks]

wc98 said:

the many where company pension schemes either folded or were underfunded, leaving the tax payer with the bill yet again.
take your pick http://citywire.co.uk/money/10-pensions-scandals-t...

Did you actually read this article?

1) Relates to the Maxwell fraud
2) Relates to government intervention - this was a gain for the taxpayer
3) Relates to government intervention - this was a gain for the taxpayer
4) Relates to a private scheme where the sponsor paid in full
5) Relates to a perverse legal judgement (and nothing to do with a company pension scheme!)
6) Relates to government intervention
7) Relates to government intervention
8) Relates to government intervention
9) Relates to possible future government intervention!
10) Is promoting pensions!

So which of the above supports your claim about underfunded pension schemes being bailed out by the tax payer?

Edited by sidicks on Thursday 16th June 12:49

[El Guapo]

FredClogs said:

My pension plan is to stay healthy and strong enough to be able to become an international cat thief

I wish you the best of luck, but I don't think there's much money to be made from stolen cats.

[walm]

El Guapo said:

FredClogs said:

My pension plan is to stay healthy and strong enough to be able to become an international cat thief

I wish you the best of luck, but I don't think there's much money to be made from stolen cats.

Foreign cats; even worse!

[franki68]

Used to deal with him in the 90s,I would count my fingers after shaking his hand.

he started his current empire acquiring my relatives business,and funnily enough some of the accusations made against him now are identical to some of the things my relative said he did to him .

[Murcielago_Boy]

franki68 said:

Used to deal with him in the 90s,I would count my fingers after shaking his hand.

he started his current empire acquiring my relatives business,and funnily enough some of the accusations made against him now are identical to some of the things my relative said he did to him .

Please elaborate if you will.
I'm just really curious. This guy has been WORSHIPED in the business press until recently and I want to get a feel for why anyone that has dealt with him is so wary.

[FredClogs]

walm said:

El Guapo said:

FredClogs said:

My pension plan is to stay healthy and strong enough to be able to become an international cat thief

I wish you the best of luck, but I don't think there's much money to be made from stolen cats.

Foreign cats; even worse!

Foreign pussy is the best kind, every milk tray man knows that...

[JNW1]

longblackcoat said:

JNW1 said:

longblackcoat said:

He's interested in retail, and he's good at that. He's like most CEOs though, in that he's got an eye for detail in the things that interest him, and none whatsoever in pensions and the like. It'll be about 472nd on his list.

That's not to excuse him, but to point out that he's far from being alone in this (possibly genuine) selective memory. I had a CEO who had zero understanding of our financial statements, other than the fact that if we sold X volume at Y margin then I could take care of the rest and convert to cash/profit accordingly. Absolutely no clue about any other part of our numbers, and the balance sheet - other than the vaguest concept of what it might be - was a mystery to him. Pensions was another blank space.

I should add that this was a £500m turnover business, and the CEO was and is a (rightly) highly respected player in the industry. Ask him anything on our products or strategy and he was razor sharp; anything on numbers, pension deficits/triennial valuations etc and he was a void.

And all that's fair enough but in a large organisation you have specialists in the relevant areas who should be able to give the CEO a succinct précis of the situation and recommended an appropriate course of action; it's then the CEO's job to either back the specialist's recommendation or push back and request for other options to be considered. A substantial hole in the funding of the company pension scheme is something a CEO should have been made aware of and in this case not only was Green aware he was also involved quite actively in determining the company response to the problem (remember he was the one who was saying company contributions to the scheme would be no more than £10m a year). The bottom line is that as the head man Green and his family were taking millions out of this business and trying to play the "I knew nothing" and the "it wasn't down to me" cards isn't good enough; with large rewards comes responsibility IMO.....

As I said before, I'm not excusing him, simply pointing out that he may well genuinely have never looked at this stuff, and certainly wasn't remotely interested in it. Good corporate governance should ensure that it's brought to his attention in such a way that he can't ignore, which seems to have been missing in this case.

All I was trying to point out is that he's far from alone in not giving a st about anything other than the parts of the business in which he's expert.

And the point I'm making is that from the session yesterday it was evident that Green did know about the significant deficit in the BHS company pension scheme and was sufficiently interested to impose a £10m/annum ceiling on company contributions towards a recovery plan (which meant that recovery plan would take far longer than normal to clear the deficit). Therefore, my suspicion is that the corporate governance bit worked in this instance, the problem is more that it ran into someone who didn't want to cough-up and make good the deficit (or at least not within the normal sort of timescale for these things).

As for not giving a monkey's about areas in which he's not an expert, IMO that's simply not good enough when you're running the company. If someone wants to stick to their specialism that's absolutely fine but when you become a CEO you can't cherry pick what's your responsibility and what isn't; ultimately the book stops with you and if there are bits you're not especially interested in you need to employ specialists in those areas who you trust and support. Green made great play yesterday about what an excellent team he has around him so if that's true - and they were giving him all the information he needed - the problem surely sits with him? If it's not true - and he's surrounded by people who aren't competent - that's also his problem as he employs them and should have performance managed them out if they weren't up to the job.

[walm]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Come on... who was the first worst? Or just the worst, if you like.