The Fall of Britain’s Most Hated Businessman | Investigators

Journalist Oliver Shah investigates the rise and fall of Sir Philip Green, the former celebrity owner of Topshop and BHS and ‘king of the high street’, whose dodgy business deals threatened the pensions of thousands of staff.

00:00 Introduction
03:12 Sir Philip Green's Lifestyle
05:19 The Sale of BHS to Dominic Chappell
06:58 Confronting Sir Philip Green
09:33 The Collapse of BHS & Arcadia

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[artjacob]

Did they strip Philip Green of his knighthood - NO. Did he pay back all the shortfall in the BHS pension fund - NO. Did he pay UK tax on the £1.2 Billion he siphoned out of Arcadia - NO Did he get away with it - YES. I wonder if he's invited Baroness Mone onto his £100 Million yacht to compare notes?

[oro]

The story still ends with a billionaire on his boat in Monaco and thousands of people out of work and cheated of there pensions

[OliCM]

The media are viewed extremely poorly, but it’s exposures like this that are vital to keep the Phillip Green’s in check when the Govt fail to do so.
This investigation is the sole reason why those poor people got their pensions

[javid]

I remember being parked in the West End he pulled up in a Merc giving me a dirty look he’s chauffeur comes over to me and tells me that’s Sir Phillip Greens parking space, it was a pay and display, I obviously told him to do one,

[LewisCowles]

It's not enough. These fraudsters need jail time, and serious repercussions.

[dartmoordave]

He is exactly why pension law needs an overhaul in the UK. As does the ability to close a business with huge losses on a Friday and open as a new clean business on the next Monday.

[steveharris]

I walked right past him in Skiathos where he had his boat moored offshore. He was on his phone and, as I passed him, he said “ I’ve just trashed the regulator”. Just about sums him up. As Oliver Shah concluded in his book It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that Green’s a deeply unpleasant human being.

[kadiryoruk]

This man ended clothing industry in London in the 90s. Arcadia was the company that started having clothes made abroad. The government (new labour) let him get away with so much. They literally forced clothing factories to close with new rules for clothing factories creating expenses they couldn’t afford. Thousands of workers lost their jobs, with no media coverage of what was happening.

[blueyhis.zarsoff]

As a non brit I am amazed that since Maxwell neither government has done anything to protect employee pensions, its cash to loot.

[MaximusJohal]

This is why journalists are needed. Stop corruption.

[thetwitterlectual]

I was working for BHS over its last few years, and with hindsight, it’s no surprise that the company went under. Basically, nothing much had been updated or invested in for years. As staff, we were working with tills and other equipment from the late 90’s (for instance the tills still had a hardware button on them for paying by cheque) and if a customer wanted to order online, you were lucky if the ordering page would even load. This being the kind of thing which kept businesses afloat during the recession of the late 2000’s, you would think that they would have invested in it a lot more. I left BHS as it all ended and went to a much better retailer where there is regular investment and technology gets updated every couple of years. There is also a lot more availability of stock, and the difference is quite noticeable.

[gudgengrebe]

That’s heartwarming to see Oliver Shah go to such lengths to expose those pirates. Some people still care! Such a shame so many greedy people get away with stealing pensions.

[graemethelaw]

As a pensions lawyer, this was a joy to see. A crooked employer get skewered using pensions law as a fork. Chappell is also now allergic to Brighton after the Pensions Regulator hit him with a £9.5 million sanction.

[MdivalG]

I get so angry that corporations get away with this kind of stuff all the time. There's so much we aren't even aware of!!! Governments are hugely responsible for allowing this!!!

[Sheepwillbesheep]

The fact he is a “sir” says all you need to know. The sheep are so blind…

[annettehellingrath]

My favorite high end clothing store went dark inside the Mall one day. I ran into one of the women who worked in the store, she had been there for many years, and asked her what happened. Turns out even this store owner bought a yacht, amongst other things, like cars, homes and other goodies. Things started to fall apart for him eventually and he had to declare bankruptcy. Of course all his employees were at the bottom of the list as far as their pays, holiday pays, etc., were concerned. I think this is what happens to a lot of wealthy business owners, they take so much money out of their companies that when a slump happens the rot starts to set in pretty quickly. They are usually ok, it's their employees who suffer the most. Not getting a pay cheque is quite serious for most people, not to mention being out of a job. A friend of mine also had a good thing going and was off on holiday constantly, working the odd time only, building a mansion, driving expensive cars, etc. but not paying his business taxes for several years. Finally having to face the fact that he was in deep trouble and no longer able to hide the fact that he owed a small fortune to the government - he died. All his offices closed. I remember clearly reading about CEOs and the money they were raking in when I was a secretary at a fitness club. This goes back more than thirty years or so. I asked my boss how this made any sense, or how anyone thought that this was fair. I did the math and this one guy was making about three thousand dollars a week. These days some of these CEOs make that in a minute, while the employees of the company have to go on strike to get a few pennies more a week. It is a skewed system that is not sustainable.

[DeleteTheWeak]

Great journalism. Well done for exposing that absolute snake of a man.

[yetidodger]

my friend was a loss prevention officer in a BHS and was asked to go to the canteen get a portion of chips and then weigh them because it had been reported that they were giving away too large a portion and it was cutting into profits.

[belamoure]

Great work thank you for your hard work.

[misapisa]

this is real journalism. keep it alive!