Philip Green About To Offload 25% Of Topshop/topman

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/sir-philip-green-set-to-sell-up-to-offload-sizeable-topman-and-topshop-stake-8382297.html

Billionaire retailer Sir Philip Green is on the verge of selling a chuck of his fashion brand Topshop to US investors.

The tycoon is in talks to offload a stake of up to 25 per cent of Topman and Topshop in a deal which values the two chains at close to £1 billion, according to sources.

The buyer is understood to be one of the joint owners of American clothing business J Crew.

Looking to check out with some cash?

[The Masked Tulip]

Reward points?

[Colin]

Hope he has asked his wife, as I thought that she owned the company so he did not need to pay any tax.

That was my impression. She owns it all, supposedly lives in Monaco and so they don't pay tax.

[bewildered_renter]

He trousered the cash a long time ago.

[winkie]

Downsizing, no longer need the extra unproductive empty rooms.

[blackgoose]

Not much chance of him paying capital gains tax that the plebs would have to. I think his wife owns it, and she lives in Monaco. Still, little things like taxes dont get in the way of getting a knighthood and hobnobbing with the royal and political elites.

Edited December 5, 2012 by blackgoose

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

A wise man. Retail's a disaster zone and will remain so.

[R K]

Perhaps he's had a tax demand

(joking obv)

[bewildered_renter]

thought it was called asale and lease back these days.fair play to him.got his money out

Well, what I read in Peston's Who Runs Britain, was that he bought BHS with other people's money, sold the property portfolio and pocketed the proceeds himself.

So I think he got somewhat more than "his" money out.

[skomer]

Of course Phillip Green was a key beneficiary of the 'Fat Man Finance' of HBOS under the control of Peter Cummings' division.

Huge leveraged takeover allowed him and his wife to become the billionaire s/he is today. We took the risk, he took the gain. Most of these deals failed btw. And where did that money go because it doesn't just disappear. And are any of the recipients living in poverty now?

http://www.ianfraser...s-recklessness/

All this passed me by at the time but it explains alot....so thanks for posting.

[bewildered_renter]

so...err...fair paly to him ?

or noit?

not.

I remember Pesto quoting him as saying words to the effect (and I no longer have the book so can't quote exactly) that he was doing a good thing because the old business would just have sat on a load of property assets.

To me the implication was that there was something more useful the business could do with the cash.

So, not really consistent with him pocketing the cash himself.

[SNACR]

A couple of things I can't square are, firstly, how the coterie that borrowed so heavily from both Peter Cummings and the Icelandic banks haven't crashed and burned in the absence of these finance sources.

Secondly, how any business, the purchase of which was financed by sale and leaseback, is still in business given that five years after the deal was done they would have seen huge rent increases at rent-review whilst the bubble was still very much alive.

Also unless the deal was structured in some different way, unlike most large retail estates they would have ended up with a huge cashflow pinch caused by having upwardly only rent reviews across the entire estate at exactly the same time. It might be the case that there was some pre-arranged clever deal to mitigate these issues but, whenever I've taken a lease assignment off one of these businesses the lease has always typically been standard ie normal five yearly rent reviews and no break clauses.