Philip Green claims he can plug hole in BHS pension scheme

Retail tycoon Philip Green yesterday told a UK parliamentary hearing that he was working to fix a gaping hole in the pension scheme of failed retailer BHS.

Mr Green was addressing the British parliament’s Business and Work and Pensions select committee, which is investigating the demise of the department store chain he sold to Dominic Chappell, a serial bankrupt with no retail experience.

BHS collapsed into administration in April, little more than a year after Mr Green sold it to Mr Chappell’s consortium for a nominal sum.

The retailer is now being wound down with the likely loss of 11,000 jobs after administrators failed to find a new buyer. It has a pension deficit of £571m (€721m), a figure based on how much it would cost to address the shortfall between assets and future liabilities with either insurance or a buyout.

Mr Green, who owned BHS from 2000 to 2015, sought to reassure BHS’s 20,000 pension-holders as he said he was working with financial advisory firm Deloitte on a plan to plug the deficit.

“From what I’ve seen I would say it’s resolvable, sortable. We will sort it, we will find a solution,” he told the Committee.

Mr Green has been heavily criticised over his management and sale of the 88-year-old store chain, with the affair tarnishing his reputation as a leading player in Britain’s retail sector. Dubbed the “unacceptable face of capitalism” by some politicians, Mr Green paid out £423m in dividends, mainly to his family, during his ownership of BHS.

Some lawmakers have called for the tycoon to be stripped of his knighthood if he does not make good the pension deficit. The Topshop owner began yesterday’s hearing by apologising for what had happened at BHS.

He said the new plan would offer BHS pensioners a “better outcome” than compensation available from the UK’s Pension Protection Fund.

However, he declined to give further details of his plan.