The Lemon Fool

Sir Philip had been in talks with potential lenders about borrowing £30m to help the business through Christmas.

Sir Philip and his wife Lady Cristina Green are worth £930m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

Much of their wealth is derived from a £1.2bn dividend payment Sir Philip took from Arcadia in 2005, two years after buying the business. It was paid tax-free as his wife, Lady Green, is resident in Monaco, and she is the ultimate owner of the company.

Can any of you kindly LFs think of a good reason not to help out?

T7

terminal7 wrote:

Sir Philip had been in talks with potential lenders about borrowing £30m to help the business through Christmas.

Sir Philip and his wife Lady Cristina Green are worth £930m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

Much of their wealth is derived from a £1.2bn dividend payment Sir Philip took from Arcadia in 2005, two years after buying the business. It was paid tax-free as his wife, Lady Green, is resident in Monaco, and she is the ultimate owner of the company.

Can any of you kindly LFs think of a good reason not to help out?

T7

Not sure who you are quoting but No. 3 isn't correct. That wealth existed before the dividend payment.

Reminds me of interesting times when I was crossed over the Chinese Wall for the Marks and Spencer bid. A long time ago now.

Not sure who you are quoting

BBC News website.

Are you saying Lady Green was not the recipient of this tax free payment? Or that payment was not made? Or that the scale quoted is inaccurate?

T7

terminal7 wrote:

Not sure who you are quoting

BBC News website.

Are you saying Lady Green was not the recipient of this tax free payment? Or that payment was not made? Or that the scale quoted is inaccurate?

T7

I expect he's saying they were already stinking rich before that payment.

I expect he's quibbling the "much of". It may be like saying "much of" my wealth is my Scottish Mortgage holding, which has risen north of 10% of my net worth.

terminal7 wrote:

Not sure who you are quoting

BBC News website.

Are you saying Lady Green was not the recipient of this tax free payment? Or that payment was not made? Or that the scale quoted is inaccurate?

T7

None of the above.

That dividend didn't create the (majority of the) wealth. It merely transferred it. Before the payment they owned a large stake in a company, after the dividend they owned a large stake in a company that was worth approx. £1.2bn less than before.

Consider selling your house with the proceeds paid as cash into your current account. Your wealth pre and post the house sale aren't radically different. Someone (from the BBC perhaps) making a report suggesting you are now "rich" because you have lots of cash, isn't really describing the situation. It happens all the time and just shows the poor reporting of business/finance stories in the media (even in the business ones where they should know much better).

Now all sorts of allegations can be made against him, and the type of person he was/is (not hugely pleasant for those that actually met him will attest), but mostly what is reported about him, and his wrongdoings aren't actually that accurate.

My crossing of paths with him was short, somewhat remote, being through an intermediary, but he was hugely successful at what he did, and didn't care particularly if he ruffled some feathers on the way to that success.

Strikes me he is angling for some government underwriting.

I have to say I am very frustrated with the newspapers in all this as well. Blaming covid for the cause when quite clearly the same newspapers were spouting the company has lost 50% last year, way before covid.
Sadly many people will read that and accept it as truth.

Today's news, Debenhams.

It's a long, long time since I saw any point to Debenhams. The shop where if you want (say) a shirt, you don't go to "the shirt section", you have instead to find each label that sells shirts, then find that label's shirt section! And worst of all, immediately on entering a store you'd more likely than not have to run the gamut of a stinks department before coming to anything of possible interest.

Is it just me, or was it a complete waste of space since sometime last century?

Returning to the original point, I suspect that that when the newspapers/BBC are talking about wealth, they mean liquid wealth. If the wealth is tied up in the business they cannot really spend it on the high life in Monaco and it was only after they extracted the £1.2 billion that they hit the high life although it is probable that by the standards of most mortals they were doing pretty well before that.

As for seeking a loan of £30 million, it is pretty obvious that Green did not really care about Topshop if all it needed was a £30 million injection because he could probably have put that in himself almost without noticing that it was missing.

Dod