Frank Field: Tina Green made £28m last year from BHS acquisition

Frank Field MP was responding to Lady Green’s letter to the joint select committee in which she answered the questions posed by the committee.

The Business, Innovation and Skills committee and Work and Pensions committee have completed their public evidence sessions, which have seen the main protagoinsts in the collapse of BHS probed, including Sir Philip Green and Dominic Chappell. 

In her written evidence, published yesterday, Lady Green detailed which companies she was the majority shareholder of and why she chose to base them in certain jurisdictions.

She also set out the income those companies derived from the acquisition of BHS and from other Taveta group companies. Taveta is Arcadia’s holding company.

She stated that, in accordance with the already published accounts of Taveta Investments, she had earned £28.2m in the year to August 2015 from the sale of BHS to Taveta Investments (No 2).

Before that time BHS was owned by Global Textiles Investments, of which Tina Green was the majority shareholder.

When BHS was sold to Taveta it was in the form of £200m 10-year fixed rate loan notes, with an 8% coupon.

This means that Green earns £20 million a year repayment plus 8% interest on what balance is left (£8.2 million in 2015).

Field said in his response: “I am not much closer to understanding the complex web of offshore Green companies but I am intrigued to learn that, while the attraction of Monaco is its fine schools, the British Virgin Islands and Jersey are favoured for their robust regulatory regimes.

“What is clear, however, is that Lady Green was paid £28 million offshore, in the latest accounting year, for the acquisition of BHS by Taveta.”

BHS went into administration in April and is being wound down after administrators were unable to find a buyer for the department store chain.

Last week BHS’s administrators struck a deal to sell the collapsed retailer’s international business and its website to Qatari group Al Mana.