Frank Field, the chair of a committee of MPs examining the demise of BHS, has written to the retailer’s pension trustees insisting that the group’s former owner, Sir Philip Green, must ensure benefits are restored to pensioners.
Green gave his assurance that he was “here to sort this” when he gave evidence to MPs almost a month ago, but is understood to be only in the early stage of talks about finding a resolution to BHS’s pension funding problems.
But the cost of financing the fund’s deficit, which already stood at £571m by one calculation, is thought to have soared by several hundred million pounds since the UK’s vote to leave the EU, which knocked about 10% off gilt yields, an important factor in pension financing.
BHS is being wound down by administrators, with 11,000 jobs at risk after it collapsed into administration in April. Green controlled BHS for 15 years until March 2015, during which time the tycoon’s family and other shareholders collected more than £580m in dividends, rent and interest payments. Green’s Arcadia Group sold BHS for £1 last year to Dominic Chappell, a three-time bankrupt whose consortium, Retail Acquisitions, extracted at least £17m from the retailer.
Green is thought to be planning to buy out those BHS pensioners who have pension pots of £18,000 or less as a way to make an overall rescue package less expensive. But any more comprehensive bailout is likely to cost Green at least £400m.
Now Field has written to Chris Martin, chair of the BHS fund trustees, saying any deal with Green would need to concentrate on guaranteeing entitlement to those remaining members of the pension fund scheme.
“This is crucial in Sir Philip acknowledging his responsibilities to BHS pensioners,” Field wrote.
MPs are expected to publish their report into the collapse of BHS and the impact on its pension scheme by the end of this month.
Field told the Guardian: “Green came in to parliament huffing and puffing and saying he would fix it, but where’s the fixing weeks later?”
As spokesman for Arcadia said: “Frank Field’s continued interference in this matter is deeply unhelpful. He is not the regulator and he should mind his own business.”
