Big questions for Sir Philip Green over BHS pension deficit, says Lord Myners

Arcadia Group boss Sir Philip Green and former BHS owner faces big questions over his role at the collapsed retailer, says Lord Myners. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

City grandee Lord Myners has said there are big questions to be answered about Sir Philip Green’s stewardship of BHS and the collapsed retailer’s£571m pension black hole.

Myners, who fought off Green’s bid for Marks & Spencer more than a decade ago, voiced strong criticism of the billionaire former boss of BHS, the retailer’s pensions trustees and the pensions regulator on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday.

“When Philip Green took money out of the company, he weakened the company and therefore weakened its ability to meet the pensions promise,” Myners said. “The pensions regulator, and the pensions trustees, have to constantly say to themselves: ‘Is the owner in a position to continue to meet the obligations?’

“If you have a company that is losing market share, losing profitability, heavily indebted – as BHS was under Philip Green’s ownership – then the trustees should make sure there was sufficient money in the pensions scheme and they clearly failed to do that.”

Lord Paul Myners.

Myners, a former City minister in Gordon Brown’s Labour government, was the bitter adversary of Green as chairman of Marks & Spencer between 2004 and 2006 when the former BHS owner attempted a £10bn takeover.

He spoke to the Today programme after filing 11 questions in the House of Lords calling on the government to investigate the BHS collapse.

Green sold BHS for £1 a year ago to a little-known group of investors led by formerly bankrupt Dominic Chappell. Both men are under pressure to explain how the 88-year-old high street chain fell into administration, putting 11,000 jobs at risk, and how it built up a large pension deficit after they took millions of pounds out of the company.

Myners said: “The big question is whether when Philip Green sold BHS to a group of individuals with no retail experience, lead by a former mini-racing car driver and twice bankrupt person, that the pension scheme had enough assets to meet its liabilities.”

He said the government should fully investigate what went wrong at BHS. “The Insolvency Service should be instructed by government to look at all circumstances leading up to the collapse of BHS because there are big questions which need to be asked about the stewardship of this company under the ownership of Lady Tina Green and the management of Sir Philip Green.”