Philip Green, does anyone care what the truth is?

[Adrian W]

Just watched the ITV interview, he claims he followed the advisors advice, yet no one has asked for the actual figures, from what he was saying it seems that no one actually cares what the truth is, it's just a public lynching.

[Adrian W]

Eric Mc said:

If you were a member of the BHS Pension Fund you might have a different view.

If you shaft you're staff - you are obviously an astute and clever business man.

I take it you didn't see the interview Eric,

How do you think he shafted them?

Buy taking the professional advice or by taking a £300m dividend and investing £800m

Have you read thes accounts?

[Adrian W]

FredClogs said:

You only need to look at the man to know he's a piece of st, he looks like Peter Stringfellow fked a Hippo. That's all the evidence I need, string him up.

I love the intelligent thought out balanced view

[Adrian W]

FredClogs said:

It's nothing to do with jealousy, for gawds sake, most normal people given any sort of wealth would not behave in the way this human slug does, most normal people recognise these types for what they are - sociopaths and deeply sad individuals, I might covet his houses, his pad in Monaco or his cars, of course I'd love to have them but the thought of doing the things this man has done to get them and the sheer chasm of any sort of humanity that lies within his soul turns me rigid with fear. Anyone could do what he did given the correct brain chemistry and moral disassociation, mental peculiarities are nothing to be jealous about. He's not an Alpha male, he's a horrible little sneaky, greedy Augustus Gloopy looking snitch.

Please enlighten me, give me a list

[Adrian W]

Eric Mc said:

No - it's about abuse of power and privilege and knowing the right people.

I can't for the life of me understand why the minnows and non-entities of PH feel so enthused to support those who more or less seem to be able to do what they like.

Maybe they feel enpowered by identifying with the rich and powerful.

Eric, your normally fairly sensible, do you have a list of what Green has actually done wrong

[Adrian W]

sidicks said:

I've purely commented on the known facts of the case, not decided to make any moral judgements one way or the other. That's what the OP was asking.

Spot on, it's amazing that people cant do this, it seems that people either don't like him (obviously they don't know him) they don't like what he as done (even though it is completely legal) or they are just jealous of his wealth.

so as suspected it is just a lynch mob.

[Adrian W]

It does seem that the Guardian and Frank Field have got it in for him whatever he does.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/19/s...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/philip-green

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/10/18/sir...

Edited by Adrian W on Wednesday 19th October 14:48

[Adrian W]

JNW1 said:

The link below might help to shed a bit of light on things!

http://uk.businessinsider.com/sir-philip-green-bhs...

Hardly unbiased or definitive, who are business adviser?

[Adrian W]

JNW1 said:

Sorry, what claim was that? What I said was that during Green's ownership the pension schemes went from surplus to deficit whilst at the same time he and his family took hundreds of millions out of the business - I think that's actually a matter of record and the link to the article I posted supports that?

What about the £800 Million Green says he put in over the period, which is nearly three times what he took out why are you choosing to ignore this?

[Adrian W]

TVR1 said:

Adrian W said:

JNW1 said:

Sorry, what claim was that? What I said was that during Green's ownership the pension schemes went from surplus to deficit whilst at the same time he and his family took hundreds of millions out of the business - I think that's actually a matter of record and the link to the article I posted supports that?

What about the £800 Million Green says he put in over the period, which is nearly three times what he took out why are you choosing to ignore this?

But he didnt put that in. What he actually did was put up 'security' to the tune of £800 million. However, the security wasnt real money. It was a far less amount but levered.

You probably dont remember tge Phoenix venture holdings. How to acquire a multi million pound business by guarantee.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Venture_Ho...

He says a it was cash http://www.standard.co.uk/business/sir-philip-gree... How come you know better

[Adrian W]

I'm pretty sure that in this context he meant cash

[Adrian W]

durbster said:

I keep thinking of this article in relation to Green, in which a very rich bloke realises things cannot continue as they are.

The Pitchforks Are Coming...
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the...

Nick Hanauer said:

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out.

Edited by durbster on Thursday 20th October 09:12

It will start with Government employees pensions, as in we can't afford our own but have to pay for theirs. but has nothing to do with this thread.

[Adrian W]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37709803

There must be a point where he sues,

It does seem a shame that the MP's don't put so much enthusiasm into the affairs Amazon, Starbucks etc. Green seems to be a very easy target.

[Adrian W]

FN2TypeR said:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/20/p...

I imagine he will be devastated

Oh look it's the Guardian again I hope he starts suing MP's who have slandered him, this really is a lynching, and are they going to treat all of the other executives of companies in the same way,

lets start with the banks, Libor,PPI etc etc

[Adrian W]

REALIST123 said:

It's a meaningless gesture. The time to be investigating him was before he was 'honoured' but for some reason he suited the establishment'spurpose then; now he doesn't. He's the same bloke now as he always was.

Imho he's no better or worse than any of the MPs hunting him down.

I think that sums it up, such a fickle world

[Adrian W]

sidicks said:

Historically HMRC forced companies to take payment holidays to avoid building up excessive funds 'tax free'. Not sure that would be an issue now though!

Sidicks, shurely the names of the trustees must be published somewhere? I don't get why they haven't been wheeled out to support on of the sides

[Adrian W]

Trophy Husband said:

I run an SME and had the opportunity of a healthy dividend being posted based upon our profits last financial year. Both my partner and I agreed that whilst it was available to us we would only draw the dividend to return to the business as Directors Loans. The reason for doing this? Safeguarding the future of our staff. If, at the end of this FY we remain in a healthy position then we may look at drawing more. If not, it remains. It strikes me that PG has drawn his dividend regardless of the impact on the business. That is pure greed.

About ten years ago I was involved in a company making significant profits with a very healthy balance sheet, like you we chose not to take large dividends or bonuses. 8 months later the company went into administration due to a very bad debt and the bank deciding to pull out of the UK SME market

Taking a dividend would have made no difference to the company or staff, obviously I now regret not taking it, be careful a lot can change very quickly.

[Adrian W]

So the pension regulator has sent out a notice saying sort it out, does this actually mean anything?